
Directing
Matthieu Ricard
Born 1946-02-15 · Aix-les-Bains, Savoie, Rhône-Alpes, France
Matthieu Ricard is a Nepalese French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. He grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles. He received a PhD degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972. He then decided to forsake his scientific career and instead practice Tibetan Buddhism, living mainly in the Himalayas. Ricard is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche. Since 1989, he has acted as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama. Since 2010, he has been travelling and giving a series of talks with and assisting in teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the incarnation of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
Acting credits
7.0Brilliant Moon chronicles the life of the writer, poet, and meditation master Khyentse Rinpoche, one of Tibet's most revered 20th-century Buddhist teachers. Spiritual guide to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Royal Family of Bhutan, his life and teachings were an inspiration to all who encountered him. Richard Gere and Lou Reed provide the narration for his dangerous journey out of China, the subsequent spread of his influence and the search for his reincarnation after his death.
Brilliant Moon: Glimpses of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
2010
7.5Despite the advent of science, literature, technology, philosophy, religion, and so on -- none of these has assuaged humankind from killing one another, the animals, and nature. UNITY is a film about why we can't seem to get along, even after thousands and thousands of years.
Unity
2015
8.0Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Picard as he returns to the Asian country in the Himalayas where he spent a decade after seven years away, revisiting breathtaking landscapes and experiencing local traditions.
Bhutan: Following in the Footsteps of Matthieu Ricard
2024
7.5Shannon Harvey was working in her dream job as a radio news journalist when, at the age of 24 she was diagnosed with a devastating auto-immune disease. Determined to find a solution, she began researching cutting-edge mind-body medicine. Is it really possible, she wonders, that a simple practice that can be done anywhere, any time, by anyone, can ease suffering and promote physical and mental healing? Synthesizing the work of leading scientists with the ways of mystics, she undertakes a year-long experiment, with herself as the subject. Will meditation revolutionize her health and well-being, or is it just another over-hyped self-help fad? This compelling account of her journey provides fascinating insights about how to be well and happy in the modern world.
My Year of Living Mindfully
2020
6.4Wheel of Time is Werner Herzog's photographed look at the largest Buddhist ritual in Bodh Gaya, India.
Wheel of Time
2003
7.9No synopsis available yet.
Viananda
2023
6.5A look at the current state of the world, from the hand of six intellectuals and scientists who reflect on the present and postulate about the future.
Who We Were
2021
8.0For generations, we have believed that man is driven by ruthless self-interest. But over the past decade, this idea has been increasingly challenged. New research from fields as diverse as political science, psychology, sociology and experimental economics is forcing us to rethink human actions and motivation. ‘The Altruism Revolution’ examines the scientific reasons behind the call for a more caring society.
The Altruism Revolution
2015
6.2Alejandro is an ordinary man, in the year 2018 he has a unique opportunity: to travel in a very close way along a Buddhist monk who lived 50 years in the Himalayas and accompanied the most recognized masters of Tibetan Buddhism
From Stress to Happiness
2020
NRBy visiting three animal shelters and learning about their stories, we discover that animals are not so different from us: intelligent, sensitive, supportive, stubborn, and even deceitful, etc. However, we treat them as inferior and, to satisfy our needs, we force them to live lives of misery. What if we imagined another way of living with animals?
La saveur d’une vie
2025
10.0A transformative experience, this emotional documentary addresses some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, reflecting on happiness, social connection, daily life, death, and aging, while exploring doubts about the "word of a thousand shades and somewhat perverse" concept of success. This film has the potential to change your life and your perspective on the true meaning of success. An intimate reflection on success, it features María Teresa Paniagua, a joyful and unique octogenarian Zarzuela singer. The documentary offers surprising insights from interviews with notable figures from the worlds of art, science, and intellectual thought, including actress Rossy de Palma, philosophers Fernando Savater and Javier Sádaba, tenor Plácido Domingo, monk Matthieu Ricard, psychiatrist Martin Seligman, Harvard professor Nancy Etcoff, and TED Talk speaker and writer Victor Küppers, among others. This documentary is a balm for the soul.
The Sweet Taste of Success
2022
Fred, a man of a certain age, is slowly losing his memory. As his days become increasingly blurred, his dreams offer him an escape where he can briefly find himself again. In this dreamlike world, Fred is faced with a choice between a painful reality and a dream in which he could eventually settle.
LIVING IS A DREAM
2024
6.0Today, over 10% of the global population suffers from mental health problems. This documentary reveals three decades of collaboration between Western scientists and Buddhist scholars. The meeting of their minds and scientific research reveals how mental training techniques can help us develop well-being, become more compassionate and ultimately improve the impact we have on our planet, and how humanity is much more deeply connected that we would ever think.
Upper Story: On the Road to Well-Being
2020
10.0This documentary examines the life of Matthieu Ricard, who left a promising career as a geneticist in France to pursue his passion for spiritual growth. More than 30 years later, Ricard is a noted humanitarian, photographer and Buddhist monk. After studying with renowned teacher Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Ricard established his own methods of advancing the practice of meditation, and as a scientist, he maps the brain's activity under meditation.
The devotion of Matthieu Ricard
2009
NRThe films looks through the eyes of the first generation of Western Dharma teachers at the myriad issues Buddhism faces and how it is adapting within a culture that runs on the engines of competition and greed, where many consider cruelty to be kindness and ignorance to be knowledge. But throughout its history Buddhism has adapted to new cultures with almost chameleon-like ease. So if its past is any judge, the sublime path our colonial forefathers dubbed Buddhism has begun a migration that over time will leave it, and quite possibly modernity itself, greatly transformed.
Dharma Rising
2011
10.0Return to Gandhi Road tells the powerful story of Kangyur Rinpoche; a renowned Tibetan Master who, heeding the imminent danger of the 1950’s Cultural Revolution, and under the instructions of the Dalai Lama, braved the dangerous journey over the Himalayan mountains to India, rescuing two tons of Buddhist texts that otherwise faced potential extinction. Once in Darjeeling he built a Monastery at 54 Gandhi Road. It was here where the few single-minded Westerners in search of a more meaningful life, began to arrive in the late 1960’s. Told through the eyes of one of those first Westerners, New Zealander Kim Hegan, as he now, more than 40 years after Rinpoche’s passing, and his Buddhist practice abandoned, will trace the journey he made to Darjeeling 45 years earlier, to tell Rinpoche’s profound story, while healing the trauma that kept him away for so long.
Return to Gandhi Road
2020