The film details the personal experiences of five young Western men who were identified in childhood as being tulkus, or reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist masters.

Gesar Mukpo, who wrote and directed Tulku, was born in 1973, the son of world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his British wife Diana.

In the film, Mukpo's British mother describes her scandalous marriage to a Tibetan monk, and her vision in a dream of a being who asked to be her son.

Aware of the irony of his situation and the ambiguity of his life purpose, in the film he sets out to interview other Western tulkus to see if their disorientation is similar to his own, and to see how each has coped with the unique status of Western-born tulku.

Gesar Mukpo begins by interviewing a fellow Canadian, Dylan Henderson, who was the first Caucasian tulku discovered in the West, recognized in 1975 by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche as the incarnation of one of his teachers.

The identification was confirmed by Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa, who requested that Henderson come to the Rumtek Monastery in India for the rest of his life.

[6] Although he has not adopted the life of a Buddhist tulku, he has a thangka wall-hanging portrait of his previous incarnation, Khamyon Rinpoche, in his apartment.

Khyentse, who is a filmmaker (The Cup, Travelers and Magicians) as well as a Buddhist master, speaks about the development of the tulku system, and also about its flaws and possible failings, especially as Buddhism spreads in the West.

Mukpo meets a 20-year-old from San Francisco, Wyatt Arnold, who has been studying the Tibetan language in India for the past year.

This brings back fond memories: When Mukpo was 15, his father died, and his mother sent him there to study with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche for a year.

Derksen is the most cynical of all the young tulkus Mukpo interviews, having had a largely negative experience at the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in India he lived at for three years following high school.

He admits that there are no easy answers to the complications and contradictions of being a Westerner identified as a Tibetan tulku in a modern, rapidly changing world.

While Mukpo was filming in Bir, two local Westerners offered to take him and his cameraman paragliding for free, resulting in beautiful aerial shots of Northern India.

Those who have to deal with famous parents, high family expectations, or just trying to establish life-goals based on their inner being rather than on outside propaganda, clearly find this a universal theme.