Paths of the Soul

Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yang (Shower, Getting Home, Full Circle) blurs the border between documentary and fiction to follow a group of Tibetan villagers who leave their families and homes in the small village of Nyima to make a Buddhist "bowing pilgrimage" - laying their bodies flat on the ground after every few steps - along the 1,200 mile road to Llasa, the only capital of Tibet. Though united in their remarkable devotion, each of the travelers embark on this near impossible journey for very personal reasons. One traveler needs to expunge bad family karma, a butcher wants to cleanse animal bloodstains from his soul, another nearing his his life's end, hopes that the prostrations will break the chain of cause and effect determined by his life's actions.