The Venerable W.

'The venerable W.' is a documentary that shows an enlightening vision of the religious tensions between Muslims and Buddhists through the portrait of the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, leader of the anti-Muslim movement in Myanmar.

Burma has a ninety percent of his population that is Buddhist. The Buddhism is a religion based on the tolerance. Nevertheless, one of its leaders, Ashin Wirathu, spreads a message full of extreme hate towards the Muslims and teaching that between these ones and the Buddhists, they have to chose the second ones. The Buddhists demostrate throught the streets their repulsion for them and they do not doubt to show themselves violent about the topic. The magazine Time put Wirathu on the cover calling him "The face of Buddhist terror". The leader of this Buddhist community has declared publicly his support to Donald Trump when he said that if the United States of America wanted to keep the peace and the safety of the country the population had to vote for him.

'The venerable W.' is written and directed by Barbet Schroeder, director of other movies and documentaries such as 'Inju, la bête dans l'ombre', 'Our Lady of the Assassins', 'Single White Female' and 'Charles Bukowski par Barbet Schroeder', among others. The documentary is produced by Lionel Baier ('Josette and me'), Margaret Ménégoz ('Les jours venus') and Olivier Père ('Roubaix, une lumière').