L'OR BRUN DU TIBET

An amazing mutation between animal and plant, cordyceps sinensis is a unique combination of a caterpillar and a mushroom that grows wild in the highlands of Tibet and the Himalayas, at an altitude of over 4000 meters.
This strange organism has always had the reputation of stimulating and regenerating physical faculties and immune defenses. It is one of the basic ingredients of the Asian pharmacopoeia. But since 1993, date of the victory of two Chinese world champions of athletics, cordyceps, nicknamed the "Viagra of the Himalayas", is not only an income for the nomadic populations but also for a whole network of traders who see in it a product even more lucrative than ginseng.
The growing demand for it has led to it being traded at around 25,000 euros per kilo in 2008, more expensive than gold! Tibetan society is being remodeled, the nomads are settling down with the money from the harvest, and the race for profit is pushing Chinese and international laboratories to isolate the stem cell that would make it possible to make a much less expensive medicine. But no reliable clinical study has been conducted to verify these properties, says the director of the University of Biology of Hong Kong.
Shot in Yunnan and Hong Kong, at the two ends of the chain, this film tells the story of this new brown gold rush and the stakes it creates.