Just eight years old, Kenrap is one of several Buddhist monks living in a monastery in the snow-peaked Himalayan mountains. He has a simple life: prayer, lessons, and meals among an all-male crew of monks young and old. It’s a life he chose at just five years old. Director Marianne Chaud focuses her study almost exclusively on Kenrap in her 65-minute documentary, giving him the type of agency we rarely see in stories about children. Chaud’s camera follows Kenrap intently as he makes the difficult trek to visit his family in a rural village. While most of the film takes an observational approach, there are moments where Chaud makes her narrative intentions apparent, continually asking Kenrap on the trek back to the monastery if he’s sad about leaving his family and happy about returning to the monastery. Clearly, she didn’t get the Zen response she’d been hoping for.

At 6:30 p.m.; also on Friday, April 15 at 7 p.m. Both showings at Goethe-Institut.