English subtitles for this video are available by clicking the CC button at the bottom right of the video player.
Born into a wealthy Austrian family, the life of Vanja Palmers changed course dramatically in 1972 after a psychedelic experience. Abandoning his plan to enter the business world, he became a Zen Buddhist priest and founded a silent meditation retreat, first in Austria, then in Switzerland. Chris Santiago’s short documentary Stille finds Palmers in his 70s and still embracing a life centred on Zen practice. As the camera follows him on his meditation rituals and on a hike through the Swiss mountains, Palmers gives voice to his philosophy of non-attachment and his understanding that life is a precious, if fleeting, opportunity. ‘It is a great consolation that things are not eternal,’ he says, leaving viewers with the somewhat confronting message that if humans continue on our current trajectory of growth, consumption and harm to fellow creatures, we’ll soon disappear – and for the better.
Director: Chris Santiago
Producer: Daryl Hefti
video
Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
Technology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
16 minutes
video
Neuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
11 minutes
video
Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
video
Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes
video
War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
9 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
The little Peruvian guide to public speaking that conjures up a grandiose world
7 minutes
video
Life stages
What Michelangelo’s late-in-life works reveal about his genius – and his humanness
13 minutes