Co-Director Mark Tang present at screening.
A Hmong immigrant is convicted of killing six white hunters in a violent confrontation during the 2004 deer-hunting season in northwestern Wisconsin. Was it a racial incident? Was it the random act of a madman? Did it happen because urban development has diminished the woods, leaving hunters to battle over limited territory? Chai Soua Vang, the perpetrator, is now in prison, his victims buried. But there’s a much bigger story here: a story about race, ethnicity, immigration and the changing face of our nation. Part courtroom drama, part intimate portrait, this feature-length documentary looks at the root causes and the reverberating impacts of this tragedy, bringing into high relief the simmering tensions – racial, cultural, economic – that lurk in America’s heartland.
Winner at the 2011 San Francisco Asian Film Festival for Achievement in Citizen Journalism, the jury said, “A nuanced approach to an urgent contemporary issue – that of refugee and migrant struggles to find a home and justice in 21st-century America.” Synopsis provided by filmmakers.
