A small-scale, low-budget delight made by a Tibetan Buddhist lama, The
Cup is about a group of young monks, desperate to watch the 1998 World Cup
on satellite TV. At every turn, it subverts expectations. With its
unforced naturalism and character-driven humour, its take on
spirituality as something everyone has to work at, and its
under-stated politics, it couldn't be further from the sterile,
overly-reverential depictions of Tibetan Buddhism we're used to
seeing in the West.
