THE GIANT BUDDHAS
In March 2001, six months before the suicide bombers hit New York, the Taliban destroyed two, over 3.000 years old monumental statues of Buddha in Bamiyan, central Afghanistan, victims of incomprehensible religious fanaticism. Frei sheds a new light on what happened through an assemblage of different perspectives, and highlights the complexity and diversity of its consequences, both past and present. Five individuals from very different cultures discuss their relation to these gigantic statues: a man who lives in the valley, a reporter from Al Jazeera, an Afghan woman, a journalist and writer who fled to Canada, and a professor at Strasbourg University who has come to work on an archeological mission. Following the footsteps of a Chinese monk who arrived in Bamiyan in 632, the filmmaker looks for other Buddhas along the way, and tries to explore the significance of the destroyed monuments.
- Nelofer Pazira (Schriftstellerin und Journalistin)
- Xuanzang (Wandermönch)
- Sayyed Mirza Hussain (Höhlenbewohner in Bamiyan)
- Taysir Alony (Al Jazeera- Journalist)
- Christian Frei
- Peter Indergand
- Florian Eidenbenz
- Christian Frei
- Philip Glass
- Arvo Pärt
- Jan Garbarek
- Steve Kuhn
- Stefan Kurt/Peter Mettler
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