THE LAST SEASON

Directed by Sara Dosa |  Produced by Josh Penn |  2014 |  78min Available for streaming on iTunes and Fandor

Amid the bustling world of Central Oregon’s wild mushroom hunting camps, the lives of two former soldiers intersect. Roger, a 75 year-old sniper with the US Special Forces in Vietnam, and Kouy, a 46 year-old platoon leader of Cambodia’s Khmer Freedom Fighters who battled the Khmer Rouge, come together each fall to hunt the elusive matsutake mushroom, a rare mushroom prized in Japanese culture and cuisine. However, the pair discover more than just mushrooms in the woods: they find a new life, and livelihood; and, a means to slowly heal the scarring wounds of war. Told over the course of one matsutake mushroom season, THE LAST SEASON is a journey into the woods, into the memory of war and survival, telling a story of family from an unexpected place.

 

Opens 9.19.15 in NYC] Every September over 200 seasonal workers, most of them Cambodian, Lao, Hmong, Mien and Thai, set up a temporary camp near the tiny town of Chemult, Oregon. They remain until the first snowfall, searching the lush woods of Klamath County for the rare matsutake, a fungus highly prized in Japan.

"...A LYRICAL ODE TO THE WONDERS OF LOVE AND NATURE, EVEN AMID INEVITABLE CHANGE."

- DAVID LEWIS, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE