A Screening of WonderousWomen

On September 25, the Maureen Stapleton Theater will be showing the documentary movie “Daughters of Wisdom” at noon. The movie was directed by Manhattan-based director Bari Pearlman and was shot on location in Nangchen. It includes exclusive in-depth interviews with Tibetan nuns as well as a glimpse into their daily lives. “Documentary filmmaker Bari Pearlman has taken her cameras to a harshly beautiful corner of rural Tibet, where an unlikely movement toward female empowerment is taking place,” says Maureen M Hart of the Chicago Tribune.

For the women in rural Tibet, daily life is focused on survival. Tibetan women often do not have enough time to pray or pursue their religion or education because of the twin trials of labor and starvation. They lived in horrible conditions for thousands of years. Additionally, the concept of educating women was considered to be a foolish waste of time and money until recently. Only men had opportunities to advance themselves.

Recently, in the district of Nangchen, a monastery has been built which permits women to become Buddhist nuns and that in turn allows them to be educated. The Kala Rongo Monastery of Nangchen is the first of its kind in Tibet. It is home to 300 nuns who built the monastery with their own hands. They are using this revolutionary concept of educating women to change their village for the better while working to preserve their culture and history. When asked by the Now Age Press why Pearlman chose to focus on the Kala Rongo nuns, she said, “Ultimately I chose to focus on the nuns because of all of the humanitarian activities in Tibet. I thought Kala Rongo is the most extraordinary kind of all the nuns, and would offer viewers something truly never-before-seen.”

After the showing of the film at the Maureen Stapleton Theater, there will be a question and answer time with the director.