Once Free

Set across the U.S. in the mid-2000s, Once Free traces the fragile networks of sangha life in a land defined by vast distances, restless individualism, and a culture of work and struggle. From Montana’s fading communal houses to San Francisco’s fractured but vibrant Buddhist circles, from prison Dharma groups in New England to solitary retreats in the mountains of China, the film reveals the search for connection, freedom, and meaning in a society at war abroad and anxious at home.