Twenty-five years after his documentary Compassion in Exile (1992) on the Dalai Lama, filmmaker Mickey Lemle returned to shoot with the Tibetan leader on the eve of his 80th birthday in 2015. The trailer of the documentary The Last Dalai Lama? reveals a mix of sit-down interviews and a behind-the-scenes look at the life and times of the spiritual leader. The Dalai Lama discusses his escape to India and China’s insistence on being involved with the selection of his successor. To this, the holy man cryptically responds: “Reincarnation isn’t a given, and if it happens, it won’t be in a Tibet that isn’t free.”
The sequel began life as a crowdfunded project on Kickstarter and has been made in collaboration with the Dalai Lama who said, “When people want to know, ‘Who was the previous Dalai Lama?’ they will look to these movies.”