BIPOC filmmaker. NFB's special programs:.Reel Diversity Competition. Agency - English program:.Atlantic Centre. Agency:.The Reel Diversity competition is a National Film Board of Canada intitiative in partnership with CBC and CBC Newsworld.

Writer, Gesar Mukpo ; director, Gesar Mukpo ; producer, Kent Martin ; editor, Rohan Fernando, Ethan Neville ; cinematography, Pablo Bryant, Ethan Neville ; sound recordist, James Hoagland, Pablo Bryant ; sound editor, Alex Salter ; archival research, Gesar Mukpo ; re-recording, Allan Scarth ; executive producer, Kent Martin.

Participation, Gesar Mukpo, Dylan Henderson, Ashoka Mukpo, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, Wyatt Arnold, Ogyen Trinley, His Holiness Dorje, Reuben Adrian Derksen.

Recorded 2009.

Gesar Mukpo was three when he became one of the first people born in the West to be recognized as a tulku - the present-day reincarnation of a Buddhist master. For his entire life, he's been trying to figure out what that really means.  Starting in the mid-1970s, Tibetan teachers - including Gesar's father, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche - began recognizing Western children as tulkus. Suddenly, a system that had ensured stable spiritual power and authority in Tibetan society for 800 years was transplanted into a completely different culture.  In this intensely personal documentary, Gesar sets out to meet other tulkus to find out how they reconcile modern and ancient, East and West.  Journeying through Canada, the United States, India and Nepal, he encounters four other tulkus who struggle with the meaning of this profound dilemma.  What does it mean to carry on this ancient tradition designed for an old world when you're living in a completely new one? How will Gesar and other Western tulkus fulfill their destiny?  Tulku was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour.  Reel Diversity is a National Film Board of Canada initiative in partnership with CBC Newsworld.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Description based on online resource; title from title screen (National Film Board of Canada, viewed 2023-08-10).