Buddhist Monk’s Short Films Win International Awards 2007-09-26
There were few people who believed Hyeyeo, a female Buddhist monk, when she said she wanted to make a movie. They said that monasticism and films don’t match. However, the Buddhist priest eventually made a five-and half-minute-long film entitled, “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form,” which won the grand prize at the Seoul World Short Film and Video Festival early this month.
The movie won another award at the 69th Unica World Festival of Non-Professional Films, held in Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia. Unica is an acronym for the Union Internationale du Cinema.
Hyeyeo is the head of Daehae Temple in North Gyongsang Province. The film project unexpectedly began last year, when she met Max Hansli, the president of Unica. At the time, she said to Mr. Hansli that he might know more than her about making movies, but she can still teach him what a good movie is.
She promised to produce a movie with truth in it, in her long-held belief that a movie is merely a vessel which contains truth. True to her word, Hyeyeo set to work. But she didn’t know the ABCs of filmmaking. When she suggested to the worshippers at her temple that they make a movie, nobody took it seriously.
Hyeyeo decided to use the mantra, “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form,” as the title and theme of her movie. She hoped to convey the substance of her religion and she believed that a movie is one of the ways to do so. Eventually, with the help of young worshippers at her temple, she established the True Movie Institute.
Their finished product is a simple film featuring puppies, children, space and a person on his sickbed. It sought to express the idea that everything originates from and terminates in one source. At the Seoul World Short Film & Movie Festival, the film won the highest honors over more than 200 submissions from 33 countries.
The judging committee praised that it is the best piece of philosophical art and that it was an honor for them to be able to evaluate such a superb film. At the Unica film festival, her film won fourth place among 124 submissions from 29 countries.
Astonished by the movie’s success, Max Hansli is planning to come to Korea next spring to learn more about Buddhism. When asked why she decided to make a film, she said that she simply wanted to let people know truth of Buddhism, something invisible, through the substantial form of a movie. She is already planning on her next film.
KBS
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