ABOUT SPIRITED

Joua (Joo-uh) is shocked when she learns that Hmong shamans have determined she has been chosen by the spiritual world to one day become a shaman. A skeptical filmmaker, she captures her journey to understand and reconnect with her community’s ancestral spiritual practice. Spirited is a poignant and introspective documentary following Joua over a decade of her life as she struggles to reconnect with her people’s belief system and grapples with the decision to accept or reject this calling. Her intercultural and interfaith family must sort through their differences as the symptoms of Joua’s “shaman sickness” worsen, signaling that it is time to make a choice. 

She meets other shamans, everyday Hmong Americans and their loved ones who share what it is like to be at the cross-sections of identities, cultures and communities. In her growing friendship with young master shaman Billy, they face hard truths about trauma, healing, generational clashes, intercultural tensions, gender-based abuse, and how this ancient practice is changing in America in ways that scare elders.

Spirited is a feature-length documentary that is currently in late production and early post-production.