Directed by Tenzin Phuntsog, 35mm, 73 mins Executive Producer Carlos Reygadas, Ben Conrad Co-Production Splendor Omnia & Plateaux Films World Premiere FID Marseille, US Premiere BLACKSTAR US/MEXICO — 2025
"Next Life" by Tenzin Phuntsog captures a Tibetan family's journey from life to death in the United States. A Tibetan family—a father, a mother, a son—living in the Unites States. The father is critically ill, and his days are numbered. Tenzin Phuntsog invites us to share with this family the peculiar passage from life to death. The United States of Next Life are those of spotless open-plan kitchens, houses with perfectly moaned lawns in impeccable suburbs: all the signs of integration and adoption of the habits and customs of the American way of life. However, death gradually sets in, and Tenzin Phuntsog establishes a different relationship to the world, sealed by rituals, intimacy of language, and care for the body. The hubbub of blood flow sounds almost fantastic when Tibetan doctor listens carefully to it to reach an irrevocable diagnostic. A lama provides Buddhist teachings that break down our existence on Earth into four stages: birth, aging, sickness, death. A smartphone is simply a way to stay connected. Transcendence and pragmatic wisdom go peacefully hand in hand. Using a few landscapes—both virtual and real—, a stripped-down mise en scène and still frames lingering on faces, the director reaches the secret of spirituality through the most subtle strokes. While softness prevails, the film is deeply moving and acknowledges the pain that emerges in modest outpourings, and the violence of death, filmed head-on. Death marks the end of exile, and a possible return to homeland. Between retention and suspension, Next Life embraces the quiet and the silence that soothe the soul so that it can pass through the Bardo before rebirth. Capturing the essence of a delicate in-between, Tenzin Phuntsog also reminds us that in every photographic image, there is a “return of the dead” (Roland Barthes). —
Claire Lasolle, FID Marseille