Monk with a Camera

Monk with a Camera
Film poster
Directed by
Produced by
  • Guido Santi
  • Tina Mascara
  • Vishwanath Alluri
Cinematography
  • Ugo Lo Pinto
  • Ralph Q. Smith
Edited by
Music byPivio and Aldo De Scalzi
Release date
  • November 21, 2014 (2014-11-21)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Monk with a Camera: The Life and Journey of Nicholas Vreeland is a 2014 American feature-length documentary film directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara. The subject of this biographical film is Nicholas Vreeland, an American who is a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and also a photographer. He is the first westerner to be made abbot of a major Tibetan government monastery.

The film features the 14th Dalai Lama, Vreeland's teacher Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, the actor Richard Gere, John Avedon (who is Richard Avedon's son), Vreeland's father Frederick Vreeland, his brother Alexander Vreeland, and his half-brother Ptolemy Tompkins.

The film briefly shows The Tibet Center, the Tibetan Buddhist center in New York City which was founded by Khyongla Rato, and where both he and Vreeland teach, as well as the Tibet Center's retreat home in New Jersey. Also shown, in some detail, is Rato Dratsang Monastery, Vreeland's home for most of his adult life: a reestablished Tibetan monastery within the Tibetan settlement in Karnataka state in India.