Samsara

Lois Patino's 2023 film attempts to describe the passage between death and rebirth. The first part is set in Laos: a young Buddhist reads The Tibetan Book of the Dead to an elderly woman each morning. On her last day he whispers the final passages into her ear and sits in meditation beside her. The real event arrives at the film's centre. Text appears on screen asking the audience to close their eyes. For the section that follows the screen changes through light and the viewer perceives colour behind closed eyelids, with the sound design carrying the transition. When eyes open again, the story continues in Zanzibar, in another body. The film joins two continents, two belief systems and two communities through that passage. It won the Special Jury Award in the Encounters section at the Berlinale. Who it's for: viewers open to experimental cinema and to work built around sensory experience. Who it's not for: viewers who want a story and characters to follow; for a long stretch the film abandons the image entirely.