Raindance Film Festival — Some Films Can’t Wait

Higher Calling

Saturday, June 20, 2026 6:30 PM BST
Vue Piccadilly - Screen 4

Review

How do you carry on after losing the person who was the centre of your gravity? That is the question at the heart of Higher Calling, a personal documentary in which a grieving man sets out on a motorcycle journey through the Himalayas alongside his closest friends. The voyage, made in honour of his lost brother, is a search for a way back to himself.

The film's camerawork is its secret weapon. Always in motion, circling, arcing, sweeping, the camera mirrors the emotional logic: life does not stop, so neither can we. Against the vast, humbling scale of the Himalayan landscape, one man's grief feels simultaneously enormous and small, a reminder that the world is so much larger than our pain, and perhaps holds more than we can see.

There are visits to Buddhist temples, stretches of open road, and moments of quiet reflection that touch on spirituality, brotherhood and the strange comfort of ritual. Higher Calling wears its heart openly and unashamedly. At its best, it captures something true about loss: that the people we love don't leave us, but live on through us. A meaningful and heartfelt documentary.

Review by Diego Migliorini

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