芬蘭

Kusum is an ordinary, 14-year-old Indian girl. She lives in Delhi, India, where she goes to school and wonders about her future—until she falls ill. She stops eating, isolates herself and suffers raving fits. ”Evil spirits have attacked the family,” says Bhagat, an old healer. Kusum’s family initially tries Western medicine, but then opts for traditional Indian spiritual healing. It is a long road, for spirits are not easy adversaries. Kusum is the touching story of a family’s fight against bad luck, poor conditions and disease.

The Golden Triangle on the borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma is well known for its cultivation of opium, but when Swiss filmmaker PeA Holmquist returns to the area 30 years after first visiting he finds that many of the fields are now planted with Chrysanthemums. Holmquist visits the Hmong villages he knew more than three decades ago to find out what made them change from the extremely profitable opium fields, to the selling of flowers. From Opium to Chrysanthemums explores the difficulties in attempting to preserve the traditional Hmong culture in Southeast Asia, while coping with the economic and political changes that have influenced many of the villagers to leave the area and immigrate to other countries