Bitterroot

Filmmakers in attendance. Film program will be followed by Q&A.

In western Montana, recently divorced Lue lives with his mother and keeps to a steady, quiet routine: his maintenance job, working his family stand at the farmers market, fly fishing on the river, and midnight outings for karaoke at the local bar. He lives with his widowed mother, Song, whose efforts to find him another wife are unwelcome and increasingly difficult to avoid. Song worries that she can’t get through to him, and seeks guidance from the ancestors.

The order that Lue clings to begins to crumble when he is suddenly laid off. He hides the truth from Song and scrambles to find work, but she senses something is wrong. She consults her shaman for help, but Lue only pulls further away. For cash and escape, he joins a group of Hmong men to forage for coveted morel mushrooms in the mountains scorched by last year’s wildfires. On the nearby grounds of a luxury vacation home, a strange presence follows a woman and her dog. Soon Lue discovers that the spirit world may still have influence over his life—and he must finally face the buried pain that destroyed his marriage.

Film Content Advisory: Grief, Emotional Pain, Intergenerational Trauma, Alcohol, Implied Miscarriage 

Credits
Writer: Vera Brunner-Sung
Producer: Kazua Melissa Vang, YEEJ, Ki Jin Kim, Giulia Caruso, Karin Chien
Executive Producer: Robina Riccitiello, Jason Diamond, Josh Diamond, Susan Rockefeller, Tim Korn, Jeff Sousa, Vera Brunner-Sung
Director of Photography: Ki Jin Kim
Editor: Vera Brunner-Sung
Production Designer: YEEJ
Composer: Carla Patullo
Sound Designer: Tim Korn

Preceded By

Home-land: Hmong American Women

Directed by Pader Xiong

This short film explores the identities, pursuits, and making of Home-land across various Hmong American Women.