Manakamana

This contemplative documentary closely follows pilgrims and tourists as they ride high above Nepal in a cable car on their way to the Hindu temple of Manakamana to worship the wish-fulfilling goddess Bhagwati. Each of the film’s 11 shots is as long as a one-way ride to the temple, and each segment is as varied and intriguing as that car’s inhabitants. Like past films Sweetgrass and the revelatory Leviathan, Manakamana was produced by Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, an increasingly vital source of documentary and experimental film production. (118 mins., DCP)