Unmistaken Child

After the death of a revered Buddhist teacher in Nepal, one of his young disciples sets out to look for the child believed to be his rebirth. The search takes him to a distant valley, where he finds a small boy who responds to the teacher’s possessions in an unexpected way. The boy is put through several tests and the monk takes him before a higher religious authority. But the real matter is not there: will his family agree to give the child to the monastery, and what will the child say to it. The film does not open the belief system to argument but looks from inside it; what it really tells is the bond formed between two people. Nati Baratz’s hundred and two minute documentary was completed in 2009.