• A Program of Columbia University

EXEAS

  • Teaching Materials & Resources
    • Category
    • Alphabetically
    • Region / Country
  • Syllabi
    • Category
    • Alphabetically
    • Region/Country
  • Links
    • Type of Resource
    • Category
    • Region / Country
  • INTERACT Teaching Resources
  • About ExEAS
  • Contact

Death of a Shaman

Genre: Documentary

Ethnicity: Thai American
Themes: Culture (Religion), Family and Intergenerational Issues,
Immigrant/Refugee Experience/Diaspora, Individual Profiles & Personal Stories
Date: 2003
Running Time: 56 min.
Director: Richard Hall
Producer: Fahm Fong Seeyang
Availability:
For home viewing:
KVIE Public Television
Purchase (DVD & VHS): $24.95

Educational Copies:
Center for Asian American Media (formerly NAATA)
College/Institution: DVD or VHS $195 Purchase/$75 Rental
K-12/Public Library/Community Group: DVD or VHS $125 Purchase/$40 Rental

  • Synopsis
  • Review
  • Supplementary Material
Synopsis
back to top

In Death of a Shaman, Fahm Saeyang responds to her father’s unsettled life and death by taking a reverse journey to examine the heartbreaking path he took from respectability to hopelessness — and from Southeast Asia to America — in a heartfelt personal mission to understand his tragic story.

This dual journey helps Death of a Shaman examine with painful honesty how Fahm’s Mien immigrant family suffered through a 20 year ordeal of poverty, racism, religions, drugs, jail, and the murder of a family member.

It is a chronicle of a darker side of the pursuit of the American dream that affected many of the 40,000 Mien who came from a primitive life in the mountains of Southeast Asia to America. Death of a Shaman is also a moving account of Fahm’s need to understand her father’s pain, and a desire to figure out what will placate his troubled spirit and her own. (Courtesy of the official Death of a Shaman website)

Review
back to top

Evans, Will. “A personal journey: A filmmaker chronicles her Mien father’s path from dignity to decline — finding peace for herself and his spirit.” Sacramento Bee. May 19, 2003.

 

Supplementary Material
back to top

Death of a Shaman
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/deathofashaman/

The official website for the film includes filmmaker bios, filmmaker Q&A, production gallery photos, and more.

back to top

 

Asian American Filmography

Films Listed Alphabetically
Films Listed by Ethnicity
Films Listed by Theme
Films Listed by Genre

Generously supported by the Freeman Foundation.       Copyright © 2025 · Weatherhead East Asian Institute

Copyright © 2025 · exeas on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in