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Chasing Buddha

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Movie propaganda

Former Catholic, militant feminist and body guard to the Dalai Lama, Robina Courtin has been a Buddhist nun for over twenty years. Based at a Buddhist commune in California, USA, Robina travels the United States every two months - teaching Buddhism to prison inmates in penitentiaries around the country.

In between editing the international Buddhist magazine Mandala, her hectic schedule also includes speaking at dozens of Buddhist centres around the world. With an aggressive, machine gun teaching style, Robina leaves an indelible impression on everyone she meets - storming in and shattering any preconceived stereotypes of a Tibetan Buddhist nun.

After 12 years of teaching, Robina's following of faithful Buddhists has spread across the globe. from Hong Kong to Florida, London to Sydney - Robina is a celebrity on the Buddhist circuit. despite her extensive travels, Robina's greatest commitment remains to the 80 prison inmates with whom she corresponds across the USA.

In the heart of the USA's Bible Belt, Robina visits Kentucky State Penitentiary to lead a group of death row inmates on the path to enlightenment. These men's determination to harness their minds and come to terms with their violent crimes inspires Robina in her own spiritual practice - driving her to the next unknown destination. Continually travelling and without a place to call home, Robina reflects upon her ordination - facing the sacrifices she made as a nun and unravelling the traumatic events which lead her to Buddhism in 1977.

Chasing Buddha is an intimate portrait of one woman's relentless search for inner peace.

"I have many lives in the future. I am not afraid of missing anything." - Robina Courtin

Persons of interest

  • Robina Courtin .... Herself
  • Amiel Courtin-Wilson .... Screenwriter
  • Amiel Courtin-Wilson .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Definitely not Chasing Amy.

Chasing Buddha, while echoing the theme of searching for the ultimately unreachable, has as its central character someone who has found that which she was seeking. her path is far from completed but she is on the path, and that is the most important part of any journey. As for Amiel, his path is just beginning. With fearless intrepidity he has broached a personal and daunting subject: Robina Courtin. It's as if it isn't enough for her to be a family member of the closeto-skeletal variety, she also has to be a mover and a shaker, a saviour to lost souls and possessor of more frequent flyer points than Christopher Skase. The logistics of following this woman around the USA for three months are as scary as the woman herself. Despite these adversities, Amiel and Vincent Heimann (the cinematographer) have created a tight, coherent, evocative documentary that captures the heart of Robina Courtin as well as the soul.

An important part of Chasing Buddha is the contrast between talking heads and surreal observations. Every so often the film will veer away from the recitation of colourful facts and delve into an imagined subconcious, one which could very well belong to the subject and one which is completely subjective. For the purist, documentaries are supposed to be as objective as possible; not so Amiel: he binds (supposed) objectivity with his own observations of what it might be like to be Robina. This deliberate transgression creates a much more aggressive and dark tone which no amount of storytelling could ever do. Breaking the rules seems to run in the family.

These three provocateurs (Vincent is no less responsible for being harder to see) have produced a provocative (surprise) documentary that reveals as much about Robina's faith as it does about Robina herself. It's a small film - there are no grand conspiracies or oppressive dictatorships with which to make headlines - but no less for it. The biggest bonus of Chasing Buddha is the intimacy, allowing you, the viewer, access to a life of which you would never otherwise hear.

I look forward to Amiel's next work.

Security censorship classification

M (Low level coarse language)

Surveillance time

52 minutes (0:52 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

Film: 7 September 2000 - Melbourne at Cinema Nova
Film: 28 September 2000 - Sydney at Valhalla

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Director's statement
I was originally drawn to Robina as the subject for a documentary because of her sheer strength in dealing with a life that would have emotionally crippled most people. With such an eclectic and rich past, it seemed as though she had already lived three lives in one and showed no signs of slowing down. Robina is also my aunt, so I had heard endless outrageous stories from my family about the "crazy Buddhist nun" who had travelled the world for over thirty years.

I was fascinated by Robina's ability to continually transform herself - always with an uncompromising, tireless, energy.

Screenplay

I find the documentary form extremely satisfying because it enables you to take an audience into quite abstract filmic terrain while still engaging them emotionally. As they are watching a true story, they seem to have a greater capacity for not only accepting more experimental means of telling that story, but actually welcoming a higher degree of stylisation or visual abstraction.

Coming from a background of short narrative and experimental work, I tried to keep Chasing Buddha as visually rich and stimulating as possible - using abstracted imagery rather than narration to act as segues between scenes. I began research for the documentary in June 1997 and it quickly grew into a quite detailed script. the importance of scripting had been impressed upon me by local documentary makers Darryl Dellora and Dennis K Smith - lecturing at RMIT's Diploma of Professional Screenwriting in 1997.

At that time I was also influenced by the lean, visceral writing of the Cohen brothers - especially the vivid desert imagery in Raising Arizona.

I built up a series of road and fire motifs throughout the film to act as visual triggers - resonating with more meaning each time they appear in a new context within the film.

The Cohen brothers' characterisation was also an inspiration - an almost mythical stylisation - not dissimilar to how I saw my Aunt Robina.

Methodology

Chasing Buddha was shot on Mini-DV and Super-8 in the USA over a three month period from February to May 1998 - with 2 weeks of subsequent shooting in Melbourne in November 1998. Film and video was combined because the two media's textures had complimented each other so well in previous narrative works.

As the cinematographer (Vincent Heimann) and I literally chased our subject across the USA in planes, cars and Greyhound buses, the Sony VX1000 Mini-DV camera enabled quality, impromptu filming in most low light situations. (We shot with no portable lights).

I preferred the skeletal crew of only a director/sound recordist and a cinematographer, because we obtained a much higher level of intimacy with our interview subjects.

The observational sequences involving Robina teaching death row prisoners also benefited hugely from being shot with only two crew members - remaining as unobtrusive as possible. The portability and immediacy of the Sony 1000 was also crucial in catching Robina in action - her habit of ricocheting around the USA meant even if we weren't ready, the camera was.

Access

While Robina initially gave me total access to her life, she became increasingly irate at our constant presence after only a couple of weeks. During her vicious barrages of abuse we were bound to silence because (a) the shoot would be terminated if I retorted in any way and (b) I'm Robina's nephew. Luckily, she saw the benefit in spreading awareness about her work with prisoners, so she endured her teenage film crew for the full 12 weeks of shooting.

After encountering huge problems with access into prisons in California and New York, Kentucky State Penitentiary miraculously approved our visit on the 2nd and 3rd of March 1998.

While we were only permitted to shoot within the prison walls for four hours over two days - it was one of the most highly charged four hours I've ever experienced.

KSP is a monolithic bluestone building - isolated in the middle of dense Kentucky woods. Upon entering the prison gates we were obliged to sign a contract claiming total responsibility if any inmate suddenly decided to use us as a human shield in an escape attempt. As we ambled through the yard, my prison film fantasies were running rampant - then we entered the prison chapel where Robina was already teaching.

Inside the chapel compound there were no guards, only security cameras. Vincent and I were left alone with twenty murderers and a Buddhist nun. When we began interviewing individual inmates in a tiny counselling room, the stories about their crimes were horrifying, but it quickly became evident most of these men were just human beings entangled in tragic situations - one clasping a dog eared copy of Catch 22 and another asking me about kangaroos.

With only two hours of shooting time in the prison chapel, there was an extremely high level of pressure in planning the shoot to get enough coverage. Vincent Heimann, the cinematographer, spoke with our associate producer and fellow cinematographer Andrew De Groot (Dogs in space, He died with a felafel in his hand) in pre-production about the approach to take in shooting. The one vital thing Andrew stressed was the importance of long takes - letting the humanity unfold before you - as unhindered by a moving camera as possible. While Vincent was always looking for gaps in the action and taking that opportunity to fill it with a new angle, Andrew's advice was indispensable for capturing the interaction between Robina and the death row inmates. At the end of Robina's teaching, several inmates wished us luck with the documentary and we shook hands before being escorted back through the crowded prison yard.

As long as media release forms were signed by individual inmates, the prison administration was extremely courteous regarding our access. Southern hospitality prevailed and before we left, the prison's public relations officer actually wrote us a reference and gave us free hot dogs from the guards' cafeteria.

Score

The soundtrack comprises of instrumental jazz by Alice Coltrane - Eastern and Western instruments merge to create a slow, mantric barrage of sound. Its relentless rhythm and sorrowful mood reflect Robina's constant striving for Eastern enlightenment while living in the West.

Dorian Jones' score evokes the turmoil in Robina's past - throbbing electronic bass sits underneath a ringing Tibetan bowl - slowly raising in pitch until its squealing hum grates on the senses. Dorian's relatively abstract soundscape pieces are married to the Super-8 sequences dealing with Robina's traumatic past.

Finally, a prelude and fugue was taken from Bach's Well tempered clavier book #1. Echoing Robina's catholic upbringing - the scale structure of the pieces reflect the rigid belief structures Robina has embraced throughout her life.

Structure and aesthetic

On a structural level, Super-8 is used in the documentary as a series of punctuation marks - informing the talking head and observational material with a second textural layer to counter the film's potentially jarring shifts in time and place.

Rather than opting for the traditional shared nostalgia of the home movie, the film aesthetic in this context creates an ethereal atmosphere of extremely personal nostalgia.

The majority of the Super-8 which takes place inside Robina's car reflects her various mental states throughout traumatic stages in her life. These expressionistic images provided me with a series of shifting metaphors - allowing for a more authored approach to the documentary's overall dramatic flow.

This initial scripting of the Super-8 into the story was extremely helpful in using as the spine for subsequent redrafts of the editing script. The emphasis on having a fully developed script before shooting and editing was invaluable for keeping the documentary on track in terms of telling the story I originally set out to tell.

Funding

Chasing Buddha was originally a treatment for a 30-minute film, and in late 1997 I had decided to apply for funding with Film Victoria for their Dox Direct scheme. In a state of blissful ignorance I thought I could get some kind of funding without a producer attached, so I assembled a package including a 12-page treatment, a show reel and a cv. While I had a positive response from Film Victoria - even without a producer - my deadline to leave for the US was mid-February and the short list for the Dox Direct project was not until April. Thus began the desperate search for private funding.

After a few hopeless leads with supposedly wealthy private investors, I approached Halo Films with the proposal. Halo were a Melbourne production company committed to developing emerging filmmakers with either script development or production equipment. Halo offered to support the shoot by supplying us with dv equipment and Vincent and I scrounged together our airfares at the last minute - we were on a plane to the land of low fat milk and artificial honey.

Upon returning to Melbourne in May 1998 with 48 hours of DV rushes, it was time to convince the funding bodies that our footage was actually worthy of broadcast.

Luckily, I had some friends at fluid productions, a local editing facility, who let us cut a ten minute promotional edit of the film to shop around to SBS, ABC, Film Victoria and AFC.

After several months and a series of encouraging letters, Film Victoria and SBS stated their official interest in the project. This was an excellent breakthrough except after thoroughly logging the rushes it looked as though we could actually extend the film from 24 to 52 minutes. I proceeded to redraft the script into a detailed 40 page editing script made up of transcribed interviews and already shot Super-8 scenes. I then had to re-convince SBS and Film Victoria that this documentary shot on a non existent budget was worthy of an hour of television more meetings and rushes highlights all helped to woo those who needed wooing.

Julie Stone, Andrew de Groot, Lynn-Maree Milburn and Richard Lowenstein from Halo Films were indispensable in helping orchestrate this process - offering feedback and support whenever I needed it.

Twelve months after returning from the US, John Hughes at SBS offered Chasing Buddha a post production pre-sale and Steve Warne at Film Victoria followed suit approving the hour script.

I can't stress enough the importance of the editing script as it assured the funding bodies I had a structural grasp on the final film.

The afternoon we received funding, the sun shone a little warmer on my cycle home - cogs were finally turning.

Editing

When Bill Murphy (Romper stomper, Exile in Sarajevo) became available to cut Chasing Buddha, I felt absolutely privileged to work with him for the budgeted seven weeks of Avid editing. While this is relatively short for an hour documentary offline, the editing script I had prepared was extremely detailed and helped immensely in the edit.

Bill has an uncanny ability to find the logical spine of a scene and then enhance its dramatic nucleus beyond your expectations. His construction of montages was especially magical - being as exacting as matching movements within shots with the rhythm of tiny pieces of voice-over. While I produced Chasing Buddha with Julie Stone, it was only Bill and I in the editing suite and it was a relief to know we shared a vision of the final film.

In the online, the Henry operator, colourist and sound editor were also brilliantly creative - giving the fine cut a polish to the film I hadn't thought possible.

The Festival circuit

Since its completion, Chasing Buddha has been extremely successful, winning the best documentary award and the Rouben Mamoulian Award at the Sydney Film Festival in 2000, as well as being nominated for best direction in a documentary at the 2000 AFI awards.

The biggest thrill though, was being accepted into the Sundance International Film Festival in January of 2000.

I travelled to Utah to stay for the Festival and it was a brilliant experience to be able to meet with like minded filmmakers from around the globe. Through screening the film at Sundance, we also secured a television sale to the US cable station Oxygen Media.

The film is still going extremely well - most recently screening at Brisbane International Film Festival, as well as the Wellington International Film Festival and several festivals in the USA.

Chasing Buddha was my first feature length documentary and was an immensely satisfying experience. After three years from conception to its release, I'm just so happy that audiences around the world have had a chance to experience Robina in all her larger than life glory.

Amiel Courtin-Wilson.

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