MIRR (das Feld)                    a film by Mehdi Sahebi

ABOUT THE FILM

Binchey, a traditional peasant farmer from Mondulkiri, was expelled from his land – like hundreds of thousands of farmers in Cambodia. He feels powerless in the face of foreign rubber tree plantations spreading across more and more parts of the country. Together with Binchey and other villagers, film director Mehdi Sahebi stages the story of this confiscation of the land and its ramifications.

 

2016    90 min

 

www.mirr.ch

 

you can rent the film for small money on Vimeo

 

CINEUROPA:

«What’s striking about MIRR is the way in which Mehdi Sahebi transcribes the story of his protagonists, Cambodian Don Quixotes who become embroiled in a cruel game of power in which none of them know the rules (...) Like an unexpected shot of medicine, the film penetrates reality to give the protagonists of MIRR the chance to analyse the (new) reality that surrounds them, to reconsider the past and try to make sense of the future.

Without dressing up his intrusion but, on the contrary, making it explicit, Sahebi allows viewers to reflect on not just the situation facing the Cambodian peasants, but also (and perhaps above all) the very construction of a documentary film, with all its contradictions and utopias.»

Giorgia Del Don,

 

 

 

 

 



Last of the Elephant Men                     A Documentary Feature by             Daniel Ferguson & Arnaud Bouquet

you can rent or buy this film on Vimeo:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lastoftheelephantmen

 

1h 26 min

Release Date:

April 2015 (Canada)

 

A film by Daniel Ferguson and Arnaud Bouquet

 

For centuries, the Bunong indigenous people of Eastern Cambodia lived with elephants, depending on them for every aspect of life. Now with the forest around them threatened by logging and mining companies, both the Bunong and the elephant face a desperate struggle to survive. Last of the Elephant Men follows three generations of elephant owners as they attempt to save the animal at the heart of their identity.

 

Filmed over several years, Last of the Elephant Men is an elegy for the domestic elephant in Asia and a plea to protect the remaining wild population. From pristine wilderness and isolated villages to the iconic temples of Angkor and the bustling streets of Phnom Penh, the film reveals an intimate portrait of Cambodia’s disintegrating heritage, remarkable human-animal interaction, and an indigenous people trying to find solutions to universal problems.

 

 

 

 

 



The Last Refuge                                       from Anne-Laure Porée and Guillaume Suon

Documentary / 65’ / 2013

This is the last bastion. A few kilometers from the Vietnamese border, Cambodia’s Bunongs are facing with the implementation of economic concessions, which are said to bring them "development". In fact they lose their cemeteries; they lose their fields; they lose the nourishing and protective forest. Their land is being razed by the rubber companies’ bulldozers. Pou Chap, his family and his neighbors are concerned with the practices of these companies, but they refuse to become rubber laborers. They learn the hard way to survive in an increasingly difficult environment; and they try to safeguard what they can of their identity. This documentary focuses on their daily life on Cambodian Highlands, on their peaceful but noble struggle for the sake of their souls.

 

for more infomation about the Bunong Indigenous People, pleas visit:

 

EcoSolidar / Swiss: https://www.ecosolidar.ch/de/

http://www.mondulkiri-centre.org/

Bunong Indigenous People's Association

 

 

 

 



BUOYANCY                        by Rodd Rathjen

 

Film synopsis

 

A 14-year-old Cambodian boy secretly leaves home in search of a better life, but is sold to a Thai broker and enslaved on a fishing trawler. As fellow slaves are tortured and murdered around him, he decides his only hope of freedom is to become as violent as his captors.

 

92 min,

Australia 2019

 

http://www.umbrellaentfilms.com.au/movie/buoyancy/

 

 



THE FIRST GENERATION - ZWISCHEN ÖSTERREICH UND KAMBODSCHA       a film by Abraham & Kemara Pol

Österreich 2018

Run time 51 minutes

 

In den siebziger und achtziger Jahren mussten unzählige Menschen vor dem Terrorregime der Roten Khmer aus Kambodscha fliehen. Schätzungen zufolge sind dieser Schreckensherrschaft mehr als zwei Millionen Menschen zum Opfer gefallen. Die meisten, die entkommen konnten, verschlug es in die USA, Kanada, Frankreich oder Australien. Einige hundert fanden in Österreich ein neues Zuhause. Wie fängt man ein neues Leben an, wenn die Kultur zunächst völlig fremd ist? In ausführlichen Interviews erinnern sich fünf Kambodschanerinnen und Kambodschaner der ersten Generation an ihre einprägsamsten Erlebnisse nach der Ankunft in Oberösterreich.

 

 



HIDDEN FOTOS                                by Davide Grotta, Alexander Fontana, Gabriele Borghi

68 min

Cambodia 2016

 

"Kim Hak, young Cambodian photographer, looks for a new imaginary of his country. Nhem En, old photographer of the Khmer Rouge regime, is planning his entry in the business of dark tourism. What image to choose to represent our history, our country? But, above all, what to do with it?"

 

https://www.alexanderfontana.com/portfolio/hidden-photos/



LAST NIGHT I SAW YOU SMILING   directed by Kavich Neang

78 minutes

Cambodia/France 2019

 

“We’re used to seeing a house for its roof, windows, and walls. But in the end, as we move out of here, it breaks my heart." Filmmaker Kavich Neang's father is one of the hundreds of residents who must leave the iconic White Building in Phnom Penh. This housing block bore witness to a tremendous series of events: the young nation's Golden Age; a traumatic breakdown under a radical regime; decades of cultural revival centered within its walls; and, the rapid pace of capitalist development that would ultimately lead to its demise. Now the once radiant walls are grey and damaged. Neang, born here in 1987 and raised inside, once dreamed of shooting a fiction film here, but reality overtook his plan. It’s now the location for his first full-length documentary. When demolition comes, it’s all just a memory.




"Cambodian Textiles"              by Tatsuhito Utagawa

When Kikuo Morimoto (68), a kimono artisan from Kyoto arrived in Cambodia after the Cambodian civil war, the culture of weaving traditional Cambodian textiles was on the verge of extinction. Morimoto reclaimed idle, deforested land and created a village community sustained almost entirely by the traditional dyeing and weaving of Cambodian textiles. His efforts led to a renaissance in Cambodian traditional textile culture and set an example for combining a self-sustaining village and the revival of traditional culture, an example that has been widely lauded as an antithesis to modern civilization.
However, several years ago, Morimoto was diagnosed with terminal cancer: he has only years, maybe months to live. Consciously, he is approaching the end of his life. Strands of memories from exploring the frontiers of Japan and Indochina flowing through his mind emerge into consciousness. The imagery created from interweaving these strands from Morimoto’s memories with life in his textile-weaving village reveals Morimoto’s innermost feelings. Cambodian Textiles is a documentary film that follows both Morimoto, the terminally ill patient, and life in his textile-weaving village for over two years.

 

 

 

 

 



Silkworm Festival 2019  at IKTT Weaving village "Wisdom of the Forest"

Text from IKTT website:

 

Every year we hold a Silkworm Festival and Fashion Show at PWF.

On the day of the full moon in March, we invite everyone to join us

in celebration of the silkworms and the lives they have sacrificed for

us each year. The whole village makes their livelihoods from what

the silkworms provide for us, and we want to say thank you for that.

 

We celebrate with a fashion show where all the women, men and

children get the opportunity to dress up and showcase the silks they

have been working on throughout the year. Unfortunately, many

Khmer can no longer afford the silks they weave. So the opportunity

to wear and appreciate their work can be lost. Hosting the fashion show

is one way we can celebrate and enjoy our silks. 

 

The festival draws people and friends from all over the world who

have become familiar with our silks. Including Khmer royalty who

have always worked to support us. We bring in Khmer bands to

celebrate in the beauty of Khmer culture, so we continue to preserve

and share its beauty for centuries to come. 

https://www.ikttearth.org/silkworm-festival 

http://iktt.org/movie.html

 

The next festival will be hold on:

 

IKTT silkworm festival 2020


Silkworm Festival /March 14 (Sat)
Silkworm ceremony /March 15(Sun)


Time of enjoying local festival,and fashion shows by traditional textiles in Cambodia.

Place : IKTT Village
(Chob Saom Village, Peak Snaeng, Angkor Tom District, Siem Reap, CAMBODIA)
A shuttle will bring guests from IKTT town shop to the village (40 min)

 



"A Cambodian Spring"            by Chris Kelly

 

A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Shot over 6 years, the film charts the growing wave of land-rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities – both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in.

Director Chris Kelly said "A Cambodian Spring is for me a deeply personal film, which took nine years to complete. It is an exploration of what motivates us, what gives our lives meaning, and what happens when our personal desires colour and shape our actions. It is an unapologetically subjective portrait of my time in Cambodia, of the people who shared their lives with me and of the shifting landscapes, both physical and emotional, that I found there.”

A Cambodian Spring had its world premiere at the prestigious Hot Docs festival in Toronto, Canada in May 2017.

 

https://acambodianspring.com/

 

You can contact us at chris@little-ease.com

For all screening requests and distribution inquiries please contact matt@dartmouthfilms.com

 

 

 

 

 



The Man Who Built Cambodia  Vann Molyvann

 

A film by Haig Balian and Christopher Rompre

 

http://www.themanwhobuiltcambodia.com/

 

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/themanwhobuiltcambodia

 

THE MAN WHO BUILT CAMBODIA is an award-winning narrative documentary exploring the life of Vann Molyvann, an architect whose work came to represent a new identity for a country emerging from independence, and whose incredible story encompasses Cambodia’s turbulent journey as a modern nation.

In Cambodia’s post-independence period Molyvann had been at the centre of a renaissance, developing a distinctive architectural style, New Khmer Architecture, that completely changed the face of Cambodia.

Then in 1970, at his creative peak, Cambodia’s political landscape disintegrates, forcing him to flee as the Khmer Rouge plunges the country into genocide and civil war.

Finally returning in the 1990s, Molyvann finds a different country than the one he had left. He’s marginalized from public life and many of his works are destroyed or neglected.

Today, like many countries is Asia, Cambodia is developing rapidly and unevenly. The film follows Vann Molyvann, in what would be his final two years, as he reflects on the country he’s put so much of himself into.

At the heart of THE MAN WHO BUILT CAMBODIA is Vann Molyvann’s lifelong engagement with the identity of the Khmer people, and his attempt to create a unique architectural style that gives modern expression to that identity.

 

 

 

 

 

 



The Last Reel                                      by Sotho Kulikar

 

Dom fill chong krauey
Cambodia 2014, 105 minute
A lost film buried beneath the Killing Fields reveals different versions of the truth...

 

Brief synopsis:

 

A lost film, buried beneath Cambodia's killing fields, reveals different versions of the truth. A contemporary story about love, family and the ghosts of Cambodia's past.


Exposing the legacy of civil war and genocide and the shadow this violence has cast over subsequent generations, The Last Reel boldly delves into the trauma experienced by those who lived through the dark years of Khmer Rouge rule, but also the impact the nightmare has has had on the next generation. Cambodia's history and vibrant culture both past and present is brought to the fore with courage and grace.


The Last Reel is the directorial debut from Sotho Kulikar, the first full-length feature film to be directed by a Cambodian woman.

 

Buy or rent the film at :

https://www.filmdoo.com/films/the-last-reel

 

 

 

 

 

 



Welcome to Angkor                             by Christophe Hamon

Cambodia, documentary 2015, 52 minutes

 

 

 

Brief synopsis:

 

April the 17th 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. They emptied the city within 2 days and turned the country into a forced labour camp. Our documentary film starts precisely that day.

As for the whole population, Thell and her relatives are “invited” to take belongings “for 3 days only”. Very quickly, they realize the scope of the political project that is taking place under their powerless eyes. No, they will not be leaving “for 3 days only”.

But for how long? To go where? And to do what? In order to justify the unjustifiable, the Khmer Rouge repeat tirelessly as a leitmotiv: “Walk strait forward, Angkor will welcome you”. So road after road, village after village, Thell and her relatives started to forge their single goal: survive this horror.

Through the lives and dignity of a family, this documentary film mentions four years of starvation, illness, forced labour, during which this people cut off from the rest of the world has turned on itself.

 

Rent of by the movie here:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/welcometoangkar/117663418

 

 

 



Don`t Think I´ve Forgotten         Cambodia´s Lost Rock & Roll Lost           by John Pirozzi

Music documentary, 2014

1h 45 min

 

Early on in John Pirozzi's documentary, a commentator observes, "There is a saying in Cambodia: Music is the soul of a nation." And if Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll is any indication, this Southeast Asian country has a lot of soul.

 

Through the eyes, words, and songs of its popular music stars of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, 'Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock & Roll' examines and unravels Cambodia's tragic past, culminating in the genocidal Khmer Rouge's dismantling of the society and murder of two million of its citizens. Combining interviews of the surviving Cambodian musicians themselves (a total of 150 hours of interviews were filmed) with never-before-seen archival material and rare songs, this documentary tracks the twists and turns of Cambodian music as it morphs into rock and roll, blossoms, and is nearly destroyed along with the rest of the country.

 

read more here:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/dont-think-ive-forgotten-cambodias-790752



Scars of Cambodia                               a film by Alexandre Liebert                  & Emilie Arfeuil

Cambodia, 2014

30 minutes

The movie SCARS OF CAMBODIA is a 30 minutes silent documentary, which received many awards and selections in international festivals.

 

Synopsis:

 

Tut is a 52 years old fisherman living in Kampot. In spite of the language barrier, he told, for the first time and without any words, about his past during the Khmer Rouge Regime, to a photographer and a director, showing the hard treatments he experienced in a prison the year he turned fifteen. This shared encounter talks about the buried memory, the way it shows through gestures, attitudes and glances, the way it marks someone for life and constitutes a person. Tut's psychological and physical traumas bring to light the historical scars of Cambodia.

 

watch the movie here:

https://www.alexandreliebert.com/copie-de-scarsconteng

website:

https://www.alexandreliebert.com/scarsprojeng

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Enemies of the People                          a film by Rob Lemkin & Thet Sambath

Documentary, Cambodia 2010

runtime 93 minutes

 

Storyline:

The Khmer Rouge slaughtered nearly two million people in the late 1970s. Yet the Killing Fields of Cambodia remain unexplained. Until now. Enter Thet Sambath, an unassuming, yet cunning, investigative journalist who spends a decade of his life gaining the trust of the men and women who perpetrated the massacres. From the foot soldiers who slit the throats toPol Pot´s right-hand man Nuon Chea, the notorious Brother Number Two, Sambath records shocking testimony never before seen or heard. Having neglected his own family for years, Sambath's work comes at a price. But his is a personal mission. He lost his parents and his siblings in the Killing Fields. Amidst his journey to discover why his family died, we come to understand for the first time the real story of Cambodia's tragedy. Written by Sundance Film Festival

 

more information:

http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/Film/Story

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemies_of_the_People_%28film%29

official website:

http://enemiesofthepeoplemovie.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Angkor´s Children                                  by Lauren Shaw

2015 by Lauren Shaw

Producer Paul Feinberg, Mimi Edmunds;

 

Angkor's Children is a film about Cambodia's cultural and artistic renaissance, a generation after the Khmer Rouge regime, that tragically eliminated 90% of artists and intellectuals. The story of this renaissance is told through the voices of three young Cambodian women: Sreypov, a smot singer of Buddhist poetry, Phunam, a circus artist, and Saem, a leader of a grassroots, all-girl protest band. We witness their challenges, hardships, and accomplishments as they find their identity and rebuild their national culture through their art.

 

read more here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1850498611/ankgors-children

 

 



La France est notre patrie                   un film de Rithy Panh

A rare film from Rithy Panh

in french language, with english subtitles

75 min.

 

France is our homeland reevaluates the colonial mission through archival films from French Indochina. Exile is a poetic meditation on the intimate devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge genocide, which he experienced as a child, where the ideal of violent purity of revolutions and the individual and existential destruction of beings are confronted.



Mommy´s Land                                   by Garret Atlakson

Run Time 68 minutes

2017

 

Cambodia’s government routinely evicts landowners, profiting from lucrative international real estate deals brokered at the expense of the country’s most vulnerable citizens—that is, until the corrupt politicians meet their match in “Mommy.” Refusing to abandon what’s rightfully hers, this elderly grandmother holds her ground in the face of escalating physical and legal threats. Her stalwart courage inspires the neighborhood’s younger women to mount a more organized resistance. As law enforcement officers resort to increasingly violent tactics for disrupting the protests, the movement garners political momentum and a groundswell of local and international support. Although it unfolds in Phnom Penh’s poorest district, Mommy’s Land hits close to home. The exploitation of the poor is the direct result of a global economy in which U.S. real estate developers and the World Bank are the ultimate beneficiaries of Cambodia’s land grabs. Mommy’s struggle against this political profiteering presages this year’s global women’s response to our own real estate mogul–cum–president.  TAW

 

you can watch it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Mommys-Land-Nget-Khun/dp/B07MK5FZQM



I Am Chut Wutty                                by Fran Lambrick

2015

Run time 54 minutes

 

In Cambodia's Prey Lang forest deforestation is devastating the lives of the indigenous population. Environmental activist Chut Wutty is determined to fight the illegal practices of logging companies but when investigating a secret military-controlled logging site, Wutty is shot dead. 'I am Chut Wutty' follows Wutty's fierce battle against illegal logging in an extraordinary tale of one man's courageous battle to save Cambodia's forests.

Film in full lengh here:

https://vimeo.com/164665283

 

read more here:

https://www.journeyman.tv/film/6541/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Where Are They Now?                          a film by Marian Wilkinson

 

2011

Run time 42 minutes

 

In 1987, four refugee families told, in painful and gruesome detail, their stories about life under Pol Pot. 25 years on they tell us how they have dealt with the painful memories and what it has been like to rebuild their lives in a foreign land. Speaking frankly, they reveal the good and the bad - the moments of triumph and despair, and the challenges of learning a new culture.

 

See more here:

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Are-They-Marian-Wilkinson/dp/B072FJZF5H

 



Who Killed Chea Vichea                       a film by Bradley Cox

 

 

2010

Run time 56 minutes

 

This is the tragic story of a man killed by the state for his drive to help people. The investigation into Vichea's murder reveals that the criminality of Cambodia's ruling elite has no bounds, and they will do anything to cling to power. Director Bradley Cox tracks down witnesses, government officials, and former policeman to try and uncover the identities of Chea Vichea's murderers.

 

 

 

 



This Little Land of Mines                      a film by Erin McGoff

2019

Run time:

 

This Little Land of Mines is an independent feature documentary premiering in 2019. It's about the resilience of the Lao people as they live among and work to clear 80 million unexploded ordnance (UXO) that the United States dropped during the Vietnam War era. Most Americans have no idea the United States was involved in Laos because it was entirely covert. The US bombing of Laos spanned three US presidents and was the largest covert CIA operation in US history.

Today, millions and millions of unexploded bombs continue to kill and maim innocent people; almost half the victims of UXO accidents are children. The vast majority of Laotians are subsistence farmers, so the constant fear of striking a bomb in their fields is not only a physical threat, but a psychological terror.

 

read more here:

https://www.thislittlelandofmines.com/

 

 

 

 



Soldaten der Apokalypse                      a documetary by Peter Scholl-Latour

Run time 45 minutes
Bei den Roten Khmer in Kambodscha | phoenix
 

ZDF-Auslandskorrespondent Peter Scholl-Latour berichtet über die Roten Khmer in Kambodscha. Seit Anfang 1977 kam es in der Region immer öfter zu Grenzzwischenfällen zwischen Vietnam und Kambodscha. Scholl-Latour begleitet vietnamesische Truppen, die in der Zeitspanne vom 25. Dezember 1978 bis 16. Januar 1979 Kambodscha einnahmen und das Regime der Roten Khmer beendeten.



Der 3. Indochina Krieg                          a documentary by Peter Scholl-Latour



Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia   a documentary by John Pilger

 

Storyline:

 

This compelling documentary shows the dreadful situation of Cambodia in 1979, less than a year after the Vietnamese army ousted the Khmer Rouge who brutally reigned from 1975 to early 1979. It explains through recent history and footage how it happened, showing USA's and China's involvement. John Pilger explores hospitals, former torture centre and the desolate capital city. He talks to victims and former soldiers of the Khmer Rouge regime, as well as doctors. He shows Cambodians, notably children, affected by hunger and disease. He questions the international community, notably the West, about their lack of reaction. Warning: some images are disturbing.

Written by Teyss

 

there is also a doc with the title : Cambodia Year One

 

http://johnpilger.com/videos/cambodia-year-one

 

Pleas find more about John Pilger here:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0683400/?ref_=tt_cl_t1

have a look under this link:

 

https://vimeo.com/17634265

 

I cannot implement this, following the rules of Vimeo



Mit den Mördern leben - Das Erbe derRoten Khmer  a film by Helmut Grosse

Run Time: 44:00 minutes

 

"Zuerst töteten sie meinen Vater" der Titel eines Buches, mit dem Sie in den USA Aufmerksamkeit erregte: Loung Ung, eine junge Kambodschanerin, die heute in Washington lebt. Es ist ihre Lebensgeschichte, eine beklemmende Schilderung ihrer Kindheit unter der Schreckensherrschaft der Roten Khmer.

 

Ihre Eltern und zwei Geschwister wurden ermordet, sie selbst überlebte in einem Dschungellager der Roten Khmer, wo "ich lernte zu töten".

Zwei Millionen Kambodschaner fielen dem TerrorRegime damals zum Opfer. Erst jetzt, zwei Jahrzehnte danach, sollen die Führungskader der Roten Khmer vor einem Tribunal in Kambodscha wegen Völkermordes angeklagt werden. Anlass für "die story", mit einem der Opfer, Loung Ung, nach Kambodscha zurückzukehren. Es wurde eine Reise durch ein traumatisiertes Land. Begegnungen mit Überlebenden, die dem zentralen Foltergefängnis entkommen konnten, und ihren Peinigern, den Tätern, die heute noch unbehelligt in Freiheit leben.