Best movies like Faya Dayi

Tells the story of Jesus Christ at age seven as he and his family depart Egypt to return home to Nazareth. Told from his childhood perspective, it follows young Jesus as he grows into his religious identity.

A Road-Movie on rails, Ocean offers both a journey between Montreal and Halifax, as well as a sensory evocation of the intimate experience of travelling.

Ram Dass is one of the most important cultural figures from the 1960s and 70s. A pyschedelic pioneer, author of Be Here Now, beloved spiritual teacher, and outspoken advocate for death-and-dying awareness, Ram Dass is now himself approaching the end of life. Since suffering a life-changing stroke twenty years ago, he has been living at his home on Maui and deepening his spiritual practice — which is centered on love and his idea of merging with his surroundings and all living things. Shot in a nuanced cinematic style, the film is an intimate summary of his life learning and awareness, and is ultimately a poetic meditation on life, death, and the soul’s journey home.

An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public, and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.

Running the streets of Rome in 1960, an unknown, barefooted Ethiopian man stunned the world by winning Olympic gold in the marathon. Overnight, Abebe Bikila became a sports legend. A hero in his own country and to the continent, Bikila was the first African to win a gold medal, and four years later in Tokyo would become the first person in history to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in the marathon.

Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.

Handsomely-mounted historical epic concerns the birth of the Islamic faith and the story of the prophet Mohammed.

A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

Summer is a carefree teenage girl whose world is turned upside down when her mother abruptly converts to Islam and becomes a different person. At first resistant to the faith, she begins to reevaluate her identity after becoming attracted to a Muslim classmate, crossing the thin line between physical desire and piety.

When a Tango dancer asks a Rabbi to enter a dance competition, there’s one big problem—due to his Orthodox beliefs, he’s not allowed to touch her! But the prize money would save his school from bankruptcy, so they develop a plan to enter the competition without sacrificing his faith, and the bonds of family and community are tested one dazzling dance step at a time in this lighthearted fable.

Gracie knows hangovers. She's intimately acquainted with them. But this one? Why did she wake up, half-dressed, on a Florida beach, 1100 miles from home? And this time her father - who also knows about the tragedy of addiction from his struggles with Gracie's mom - isn't going to clean things up.

An American is kidnapped while attending a conference in Cairo and ends up in prison in Iran on spying charges. His wife goes to Iran, determined to get him out.

The Ethiopian intellectual Anberber returns to his native country during the repressive totalitarian regime of Haile Mariam Mengistu and the recognition of his own displacement and powerlessness at the dissolution of his people's humanity and social values. After several years spent studying medicine in Germany, he finds the country of his youth replaced by turmoil. His dream of using his craft to improve the health of Ethiopians is squashed by a military junta that uses scientists for its own political ends. Seeking the comfort of his countryside home, Anberber finds no refuge from violence. The solace that the memories of his youth provide is quickly replaced by the competing forces of military and rebelling factions. Anberber needs to decide whether he wants to bear the strain or piece together a life from the fragments that lie around him.

Moving between two extremes - the intimate verite drama of the Miss India pageant's rigorous beauty "bootcamp" and the intense regime of a militant Hindu fundamentalist camp for young girls. The World Before Her delivers a provocative portrait of India and its current cultural conflicts during a key transitional era in the country's modern history.

In December 1997, Tina Petrova drove off a cliff - literally and figuratively. A tragic car crash in the California desert was the beginning of a journey that would lead her to the extraordinary works of 13th century Sufi mystic Mevlana Jellaludin Rumi and to a remarkable array of people whose lives have been transformed by his poetry and philosophy. Rumi: Turning Ecstatic is her true story, a timely, powerful docudrama that take the viewer into the very heart of Sufi mysticism.

In the 13th century, Walter of Gurnie, a disinherited Saxon youth, is forced to flee England. With his friend, Tristram, he falls in with the army of the fierce but avuncular General Bayan, and journeys all the way to China, where both men become involved in intrigues in the court of Kublai Khan.

Sam Hunter, an American photojournalist, is ostensibly covering the Pope's visit to the South American country of San Pedro. But Sam's real goal is to track down the elusive revolutionary leader Marcos and bring back an exclusive interview. Sam quickly gets into trouble with the repressive military regime of the dictator Mendosa, which controls San Pedro with an iron grip. Nevertheless, Sam heads off to the mountains to find Marcos. On his way, he meets the radiantly beautiful Dr. Luisa Suarez, a doctor committed to the impoverished mountain peasants. An awakening volcano and the best efforts of a government death squad do not stop Sam from reaching Marcos, and he becomes sympathetic to the cause... documenting it with his photos. In a tumultuous climax, revolution and the volcano erupt simultaneously, as Sam struggles to get his revealing photos out to the front pages of the world's newspapers.

A road movie on a bicycle. Jasper leaves an alley cat race and goes on a physical and spiritual journey on her bike, through Chicago's nighttime streets, to a destination that holds an emotional secret.

In the 16th century, the daughter of a Spanish nobleman joins a convent and becomes a spiritual leader.

Azra is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. When her father suddenly dies on a trip home to Pakistan, Azra finds herself on a Bollywood-inspired journey through memories, both real and imagined; from her mother’s youth in Karachi to her own coming- of-age in rural Canada.

This documentary for PBS by award-winning filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere, tells the story of the Buddha’s life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world’s greatest artists and sculptors, who across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha’s life in art rich in beauty and complexity. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Join the conversation and learn more about meditation, the history of Buddhism, and how to incorporate the Buddha’s teachings on compassion and mindfulness into daily life.

Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes was the hip-hop voice of TLC, the best selling female R&B group of all time. On March 30th, 2002, Lisa decided to document her life. She filmed at a mysterious spiritual retreat deep in the jungles of Honduras, but 26 days later, after a tragic accident, she was dead and her unedited tapes were left behind. Last Days of Left Eye is the re-imagining of the film Lisa never got to complete. Revealing private moments from Lisa's journals and home movies, along with highlights from her celebrated career, this film is an intimate journey into the soul of a talented and still provocative young artist. Directed by Lauren Lazin, Academy Award nominated director of Tupac: Resurrection (2005, Best Documentary Feature), Last Days of Left Eye has screened to sold-out audiences at film festivals around the world.

Historian William Dalrymple journeys to Morocco, Turkey, Syria and Pakistan to explore whirling dervishes, Qawwali singing and other forms of music sacred in Sufism, the branch of Islam that emphasizes music as a mystical route to the holy. Capturing performances of renowned Muslim musicians such as Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Sain Zahoor, the film reveals that at the heart of Sufism lies a dedication to tolerance and pluralism.

For Muslims everywhere, the ultimate goal is to make the Hajj at least once during their lifetime. This spiritual journey is the basic premise of an entire religion and sees impoverished African Muslims mixing with their incredibly wealthy Western counterparts. This documentary follows some of the 20,000 Britons who make the journey to Mecca, unravelling the mysterious aura that surrounds this remarkable event. Combining the wondrous backdrop of Mecca with intriguing interviews that provide a previously undocumented view of Islam, Hajj will enchant both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the last of the six films, "The American Tapestry," filmmaker Gregory Nava takes viewers on an uplifting and challenging journey through the memoirs of five immigrant families, each one on a quest for its own American Dream. Beautifully interweaving accounts from several generations, Nava composes an astonishing tapestry of personal triumphs and tragedies, as each story of courage unfolds. The American Dream is an elusive thing, and the lives of the people in Nava's film are both triumphant and tragic, teeming with optimism and sometimes despair. They expose the finest and worst in America as well as what we feel most magnificent and dreadful. They are part of the many contrasting threads that make up the American tapestry — a complex portrait of a nation at the turn of the millennium.

Utah and his girlfriend Opal, are drug addicts living on the streets in rural Ohio. After getting recruited by body broker Wood, and offered treatment in Los Angeles, Wood takes Utah under his wing and introduces him to treatment center mogul Vin. Wood and Vin bring Utah in on their lucrative and illegal dealings, where saving lives comes second to the bottom line.

As things start to unravel in Ryan's (Stephen Baldwin) life, he is left feeling vulnerable, insignificant and wondering why. With his priorities on everything but God, he begins to isolate himself from those around him as his hardships multiply. In the midst of the big-picture perspective his struggles give him, God places people around him to help him more clearly understand the profound plan He has for our lives. He relearns how to truly rely on God through the suffering life brings and how to be confident in the intricate plan that threads together perfectly like a tapestry.

The 20 year old Muslim religious law student Ibn Battuta (1304–1368), whose full name was Abu Abdullah Muhammed Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta, set out from Tangier, a city in northern Morocco, in 1325, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, some 3,000 miles (over 4,800 km) to the East. The journey took him 18 months to complete and along the way he met with misfortune and adversity, including attack by bandits, rescue by Bedouins, fierce sand storms and dehydration.

A young American widow is mysteriously drawn to a historic castle in the Scottish Highlands and finds herself at the center of a 200-year old ghost story.

Exploring the life and impact of the greatest spiritual and legal philosopher in Islamic history, this film examines Ghazali's existential crisis of faith that arose from his rejection of religious dogmatism, and reveals profound parallels with our own times. Ghazali became known as the Proof of Islam and his path of love and spiritual excellence overcame the pitfalls of the organised religion of his day. His path was largely abandoned by early 20th century Muslim reformers for the more strident and less tolerant school of Ibn Taymiyya. Combining drama with documentary, this film argues that Ghazali's Islam is the antidote for today's terror.

Successful WWI pilot Luciano Serra has problems adjusting to an ordinary life in peace, so he leaves his family and becomes a pilot in America. In the 30s, his son in Italy wants also to become a pilot, and Luciano accepts an offer of a double dealing agent for a flight from Rio to Rome, but his plane crashes in the Atlantic. For the world Luciano Serra is missing, but he has entered the Italian army under a new name to fight in Ethiopia. The train in which his unit travels is attacked by Ethiopian soldiers, his son flying a reconasaince mission is shot down and wounded by the same attacking enemies. Will Luciano be able to fly the plane back, to get close air support for the outnumbered Italian troups?

Night Passage is a digital film on friendship and death. Made in homage to Miyazawa Kenji's classic novel, Milky Way Railroad, the story evolves around the spiritual journey of a young woman, in the company of her best friend and a little boy, into a world of rich in-between realities. Their venture into and out of the land of "awakened dreams" occurs during a long ride on a night train. The filmmaker elegantly depicts each encounter in two-dimensional space with a unique artistic gesture and ingeniously frames the passage as a series of rhythmic image sequensces as seen through the window of a train.

From practicing barefoot on the streets of Lagos to performing on stage in England, twelve year old Anthony Madu leaves his home in Nigeria to study at one of the most prestigious ballet schools in the world. Anthony, who had barely left his neighborhood in Lagos, finds himself thrust into a new world where his wildest dream is suddenly within reach. His journey is a story of extraordinary obstacles, courage, growth, and ultimately, his search for belonging.

Senegalese pop sensation Youssou Ndour has spent the last 20 years in the spotlight as a world-renowned musician and the iconic representative "voice of Africa." At the height of his career, Youssou became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam. The album's brave musical message was wholeheartedly embraced by Western audiences but ignited serious religious controversy in his homeland of Senegal. The film chronicles the difficult journey Youssou must undertake to assume his true calling.

As 85-year-old President Lorenzo Snow struggles to vanquish the two million dollar indebtedness of the Mormon church in 1899, he feels inspired to journey from Salt Lake City by train and carriage to St. George in southern Utah. Along the way he witnesses the effects of severe drought. The next day, in the St. George Tabernacle, he receives inspiration that by paying tithing, the "windows of heaven" will open, pouring out blessings. He promises the people that they can plant crops and rain will come, then continues to preach tithing as he returns home where he awaits favorable weather reports from St. George.