The Last Season

To mushroom hunt is to discern the relationships in the forest, uncovering how tree roots connect to the minutiae of life coursing beneath the soil or how canopy cover relates to moisture in the climate, which produces pockets of decomposition throughout the forest floor. All of these pieces must come together to produce a mushroom—and a good mushroom hunter reads the landscape’s clues in order to find what’s hidden underground.

The process of documentary filmmaking is not unlike navigating the forest ecology to find mushrooms. Documentary is about a search for a story produced from unexpected configurations. Filmmakers survey the cluttered social, political and economic landscapes to find pathways into people’s lives. Documentarians look beneath the surface of the proverbial soil to discover complex interconnections. And, from the messiness of the worlds they examine, they cobble together a sense of meaning.

The Last Season (formerly titled Roots and Webs) tells the story of two former soldiers—an American sniper with the U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam and a Cambodian platoon leader who fought against the Khmer Rouge—who, while searching for the lucrative matsutake mushroom, find something else in the woods: a new family and the means to slowly heal the scars of war. Amid the bustling tent city known as “Mushroom Camp” that the migrant mushroom hunters set up outside Chemult, Oregon, each fall, Kouy met Roger, a self-described “fall-down drunk” still battling severe trauma after witnessing and committing horrific violence in Vietnam. The two first bonded years ago by sharing their respective war stories. Since then, they’ve become adopted father and son. In accordance with a Cambodian custom, “If you lose your family, you must rebuild it anew.” Having fought in Cambodia, Roger was aware of this, so when Kouy asked to join his family, Roger and his wife Theresa accepted.

The Last Season follows Roger, Kouy and Theresa over the course of one matsutake mushroom hunting season as both men grapple with the haunting legacies of war while taking solace in the bonds of newfound family. All the while, they scour the earth, reading the landscape to find the elusive matsutake—a metaphor for finding their own surprising interconnections.

Thanks to the support of the Mountainfilm’s Commitment Grant, I got to hunt two treasures: mushrooms and a story. Our grant from Mountainfilm specifically allowed us to edit hundreds of hours of footage into a film about the most unexpected of relationships. We are now in the final throes of completing our film, and only the color correction process remains. We will be thrilled to make the rounds on the festival circuit soon to share this story far beyond the mountains of Oregon and with those around the world.

—Sara Dosa, director of The Last Season

We asked the 2013 Mountainfilm Commitment Grant winners to report upon their projects. This blog marks the last in the series. Read the other blogs: The Rider and The Wolf, Mending the Line, Rise, Long Year Begin and Who Owns Water.