Hmong-led feature film 'Bitterroot' premieres at Tribeca Film Festival

It took nearly eight years, and a move from Montana to the Twin Cities, for the Bitterroot co-producer to walk his first red carpet in New York.

But as Yeej, who goes by one name, prepared for the films world premiere At Tribeca Festival Last week his phone wouldn't stop ringing.

His family and friends had come from Minnesota for the premiere, as had the cast and crew of the film. They were waiting for him at the theater.

It's a big milestone, and I think we're all happy to be here, Yeej said before the screening. His happy-good stress: [were] ready for the world to see it, eager to see what people have to say.

Bitterroot, directed by Vera Brunner-Sung, is in competition at the festival in the category of best American story.

The film, shot in Missoula, Montana, is one of the few feature films focused on the Hmong American experience. Like last year's release, Harvest, he drew on a deep pool of Minnesota talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Producers Kazua Melissa Vang and Yeej are both based in Minnesota, as is lead actor Wa Yang. Twin Cities crew members also worked on the production, which relied on an apprenticeship model to involve more Hmong talent in the filmmaking process.

The production sought to be an investment in Hmong talent, Brunner-Sung said in a press release. Make a film alongside and with, rather than on.

Actors Wa Yang, right, and Qu Kue, in a still from the film “Bitterroot,” filmed in Missoula, Montana. Credit: Provided

Caught between cultures

Bitterroot tells the story of a middle-aged man who returns to his Hmong community in Montana after a painful divorce.

Lu, played by Wa Yang, returns to Missoula from California to live with his mother. He takes a cleaning job, helps his mother tend her vegetable garden and sells his produce at the local farmers' market. Lu feels very isolated, alone but tries to keep his sadness to himself. His mother and aunts want to find him a new wife but he refuses to remarry a few months after his separation.

I can relate easily, just because for me it's like a Hmong experience, Yang said. Someone who is from the second generation, the Hmong Americans, in this sandwich generation where there are the elderly and the expectations of the young. In Bitterroot, Yang's character tries to balance his Hmong and American identities, feeling that he does not fully belong in either culture.

In his acting, Yang, 43, drew inspiration from his own lived experiences growing up in Minnesota's Hmong community. He starred in numerous Hmong American films, while working as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in the Twin Cities.

The main character seems haunted, highlighting the spirituality of Hmong culture. The spirits are born from Lu's sadness and his mother, played by Qu Kue, is worried. She tries to make her son wear an amulet to protect him and seeks help from a shaman, solutions that Lu initially refuses.

After watching Bitterroot at the premiere, Chris Moua, 30, who recently moved to New York, was touched by a scene where Lu's mother prays to her deceased husband. She asks him for advice on how to help their son.

I saw in my own mother's eyes the struggle to help me feel better and find my place, Moua said. Her, using spirituality and prayer to uplift my own spirit. Moua wears a string around his ankle to protect his soul.

From left, “Bitterroot” lead actor Wa Yang and producers Kazua Melissa Vang and Yeej, ahead of the film's world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in New York on May 30, 2024. Credit: Elza Goffaux | Sahan Journal

Create with the community

We're making sure the story fits into the Hmong narrative, and specifically the Missoula Hmong narrative, Yeej, 31, said.

When Hmong refugees began arriving in the United States after the Vietnam War, Missoula was one of their refugees. main destinations in Montana. The liberal university town now has more than 200 Hmong residents.

Bitterroot is the first film focused on the Missoulas Hmong community. Brunner-Sung met Yeej in Missoula and they began building the project together in 2016. Yeej said he was inspired by his own childhood experience in Missoula.

I really took inspiration from my childhood home, said Yeej, who also worked as a production designer on the film. So when designing the space, I knew it had to look like something I lived in. As was the case in his parents' living room, the film's set had a qeej, a traditional Hmong instrument, hanging on the wall.

Eventually, Yeej moved to Minnesota and met Vang, who joined the project as an assistant director. Vang oversaw casting and ensured Hmong artists were part of the creative process. She selected actors she knew by word of mouth or met on a trip to Missoula.

You can't go for Hollywood or independent casting, with a casting director, she said. Because these casting directors don't know Hmong people, or minorities, or, if I may say so, non-white actors.

The involvement of Hmong actors and producers in all aspects of Bitterroot ensured a realistic representation of the community. In the use of language, for example, the actors influenced the writing of the script. In the film, the elders speak Hmong and the third-generation children chat in English. The main character speaks Hmong with her mother, and a mixture of the two languages ​​with her friends.

The Bitterroot team wants to bring these shades to the screen.

Few representations of Asian Americans are shown, said Vang, who has worked as an artist and cultural producer in film and photography. From the 80s to the late 2000s, we had Joy Luck Club and Crazy Rich Asians; I want to fill that void with fun, quirky stories and things that I grew up with.

The film also features other communities of color. At the premiere, Karilyn Surratt, 41, was struck by the references made to her Native American identity and realized the similarities with aspects of Hmong culture. I love the way Hmong music, the cadence of the shaman at the door, recalls [me] so much of the cadence of Native American music, she said.

Missoula borders the Bitterroot Valley, a place that was the ancestral home of the Bitterroot Salish Native Americans. In the film, this is where Lu picks morels, a job that has become easier after the recent forest fires. These wildfires have become more intense in the region due to fire suppression, and the ban on indigenous prescribed burning techniques.

Even though the film's primary audience is the Missoula Hmong community, Bitterroot resonates with a diverse audience. This is going to trickle down to the Hmong community as a whole, Vang said, and then to Southeast Asians, Asian Americans, people who work in agriculture, environmentalists, people who like hunting to morels, people who understand spirituality.

After the film's premiere at the Tribeca Festival, producers are planning additional screenings, including one in Minnesota in November to coincide with the Hmong New Year.