Review by Richard Toews.

In Daughters of Wisdom, filmmaker Bari Pearlman brings to the screen the story of the Kala Rongo Monastery where, for the first time in Tibet’s history, women are practicing Buddhist nuns.

Daughters of Wisdom is an expansive visual tapestry into which is woven the story of a specific group of women who are spearheading a type of liberation as Tibetan Buddhists. In this beautifully crafted account, Pearlman captures the intimacy that comes from living in a close community. This community offers a delicate freedom: it is in coming to the monastery that women can escape the hardship of a socio-economic system where it is still a hardship to be born a woman. However, the irony is that these women continue to live under a different kind of patrimony: they still live under the direction of a male abbot.

In a world where Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism pervades so much of western literature, it is indeed a blessing to participate as a viewer in Pearlman’s film. In Daughters of Wisdom, Pearlman has wisely brought forward the voices of the women who live in the monastery. As we learn from Pearlman, the nuns spoke freely when they realized that none of the crew was male. Here, they truly do have ownership of their own story.

Daughters of Wisdom
Bari Perlman | 2007 | 68min

Sat. Sept. 29 | 10:30am | Empire Granville Theatre
Thur. Oct. 4 | 6:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Sat. Oct. 6 | 3:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre