The film "Tukdam: Between Worlds" follows the first ever scientific research into tukdam by renowned neuroscientist Richard Davidson's team, juxtaposed with meditators' death stories and Tibetan understandings of the death process - which include ideas about consciousness and the mind-body connection that are very different to those of mainstream science. Unfolding in cinematic dialogue between scientific and Tibetan perspectives, the film unravels our certainties about life and death, and shows how differently death can be construed in different cultural contexts. In this encounter between worlds, the scientists' methods and views are challenged by a civilization where death has been a central preoccupation for centuries.
Finnish-Irish-American filmmaker, Donnish Coleman (University of California - Berkeley) is a recipient of the 2022 Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in Buddhist Studies for his research project: "Between Worlds: Cultural Bodies, Death Processes and Tukdam." His previous films with wide international festival and TV exposure include "A Gear Bard's Tale" (winner of best documentary film at the 2014 First Peoples' Festival in Montreal) and "Stone Pastures" (Winner of the Grand Prix prize at the 2009 Cervino Cinemountain International Film Festival in Italy). Coleman's films have also been shown at museums such as MoMA and the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, and by the European Commission. The filmmaker/scholar also holds degrees in Philosophy and Psychology and Music and Media Technologies from Trinity College Dublin, and an MA in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley.
Guest moderator: William McGrath, Assistant Professor of Buddhist Studies, New York University
The event is cohosted by the Modern Tibetan Studies Program and the School of the Arts at Columbia University, with funding from the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
