Loving Karma

(India, UK, USA • Doc. • 80 min.)
Theatre N, 10/9 4:30pm

In the remote foothills of the Himalayas, former monk Lobsang Phuntsok has built Jhamtse Gatsal—“The Garden of Love and Compassion” – a community for children who have endured abandonment, neglect, and profound trauma. Once a spiritual teacher in the United States, Lobsang returned to India to create the kind of refuge he never had as a troubled orphan himself.

Loving Karma revisits Jhamtse Gatsal twelve years after the Emmy-winning short Tashi and the Monk, following Lobsang, Tashi, and a new generation of children who are learning to care for one another. Through intimate portraits and unfolding stories, Loving Karma reveals a living experiment in how pain can be reshaped into love – and how even the most wounded child can become both healed and healer.

Following activist Reshma Saujani, the film charts a growing national movement to reunite moms across divisions and win the kind of historic support families actually need.

Directed by: Johnny Burke, Andrew Hinton