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Cambodian movie industry's glory days are returning

Nation's cinema is attracting a global audience as young filmmakers give a nuanced voice to its post-Khmer Rouge recovery, writes David Eimer

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A still from The Missing Picture, directed by Rithy Panh. Photos: Scott Howes; AFP

Published: 10:30pm, 6 Dec 2014Updated: 4:21pm, 10 Dec 2014

Think of Cambodia and the movies and, for most people, grim images from The Killing Fields spring to mind, or Angelina Jolie fighting her way around the temples of Angkor Wat in the first Tomb Raider film. But long before the Khmer Rouge instituted their murderous rule, and Jolie started adopting local children, Cambodia was home to a thriving movie industry, one which even former monarch King Norodom Sihanouk was eager to be part of.

Those glory days are back. In the past few years the country has gone from a moviemaking backwater to being home to perhaps the most creative and vibrant film industry in all of Southeast Asia. About 60 productions are now being made in Cambodia annually and, this year, Rithy Panh's remarkable The Missing Picture became the first Cambodian film to be nominated for an Oscar. Last month, Sotho Kulikar's The Last Reel won the Spirit of Asia award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

A host of Cambodian-themed documentaries - about everything from the Phnom Penh music scene of the 1960s to Cambodian-American gangsters turned poets - are set for release in the coming months. Cambodia has also become an increasingly popular location for shooting foreign films, with overseas moviemakers drawn by low costs and a growing pool of local technicians.

"It's a good time for us now," says Rithy Panh. "Before, we lacked the human resources to make films. Now, we've got the technicians as well as the directors."

Sitting behind a desk piled high with books and clutching a fat Caribbean cigar, the softly spoken 50-year-old is one of the principal reasons why a new Cambodia is emerging on celluloid.

"I guess I give an example to younger filmmakers. They see me at the Cannes Film Festival or at the Oscars and they're proud. They realise they can do the job and make films," he says, in French-accented English.

The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, in Phnom Penh, acts as an archive for Cambodian films.

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