Mother Bhumi

Northern Malaysia, 1998. Despite the political storm brewing across the country, life on the border with Thailand seems to flow at its own unshakable pace. In a multicultural village lives Hong Im, a young widow raising two children. By day, she tends to the rice fields and supports her neighbours in their fight against a bureaucratic machine intent on expropriating their agricultural land. By night, as a folk shaman – the local community's sole line of defence against the dark forces tormenting them – she performs rituals and lifts curses. Yet, she herself struggles with grief and the secret shrouding the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death. When unsettling phenomena begin to haunt the village, long-buried family secrets and local traumas come to light.

Chong Keat Aun’s fourth feature is a hypnotic, mystical drama in which the line between the physical world and the spiritual realm is constantly blurred. Inspired by the director’s own childhood, Mother Bhumi explores the lingering traces of a colonial past and the fight to preserve ancestral land. Chinese megastar Fan Bingbing (Youth, I Am Not Madame Bovary) undergoes a striking transformation as Hong Im, earning a Golden Horse Award for her performance.