For 10 years she and her husband ran Confiserie Florian, a name renowned on the Côte d’Azur for its confectionery made with flowers and fruits. But Natalie Fuchs had long nurtured a dream as well: to make a film. "When I was younger I'd been an extra in the TV series Dans un grand vent de fleurs [filmed in Grasse; trans.], which in the end took six months to film," remembers this devotee of discoveries, encounters and personal development. "For a film to get to the screen, all the elements have to be ready at the same time, everything must come together, so each person and thing are equally important." In 2012 a friend suggested taking photos of the big Kalachakra Initiation that every few years draws some 300,000 Buddhists to hear the Dalai Lama dispense the most sacred teaching in Tibetan Buddhism. Natalie jumped at the chance, which proved an introduction to Buddhism but no less a meeting of minds, resulting in her documentary Kalachakra, The Enlightenment voiced over in English by Uma Thurman. This came out in 2017 and has been doing the rounds of cinemas, associations and private venues ever since. The Dalai Lama has called it "vital for the preservation of Tibetan culture, which is dying out". Powerful images illustrating a quest for peace and compassion as told through the journey of four individuals, one of them Natalie.
Par Tanja Stojanov
Côteweb 2021, création de site Internet sur Nice