Cambodian Film on Khmer Rouge Wins Cannes Prize

Asian films won big at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Directors from China, Japan, Singapore and Cambodia all took part in the world’s most prestigious movie showcase.

And every year the Cannes Film Festival awards a special prize for “original and different” films to encourage innovative works.

The winning film this year was “The Missing Picture” from Cambodia.

It’s an autobiographical film which explores the bloody history of the Khmer Rouge’s dictatorship in the late 1970s.

The film is based on a book written by the film director Rithy Panh, documenting his own family’s experience under the regime.

“It is a personal story... but something small, something personal, if you make it good, in the good way, it become universal,” says Rinthy Panh.

“The film is now going global, it can be understood, it can be taken by people from Rwanda, from Uganda, from South Africa... because we fight for the same thing. We fight against the totalitarianisms, against dictatorships. We try to build our society, we try to build liberty.”

Rithi was sent to labour camp with his family, where his parents and his sisters died of starvation.

“It is horrible. But OK, I’m still alive. What is more important, we have to go back to our dignity.”

He managed to escape the labour camp, fled to a refugee camp in Thailand, then moved to Paris where he started his career as a filmmaker.

“The Missing Picture” is a dark portrayal of the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, when nearly 2 million people were killed.

The “missing picture” refers to the fact that no photos exist from this period.

Instead, the film uses old documentary footage and propaganda material produced by the dictatorship.... and small clay figures to portray the atrocities that took place.

“I met a lot of victims, a lot of perpetrators. But you don’t go to such subject, you cannot talk about reconciliation, you cannot talk about living together, if you don’t find a way to talk about the past, about the truth.”

The film was a hit with the jury, who were particularly impressed with the use of the clay figures to portray the events that happened during the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror.

Panh has made more than 15 films, many of which focus on the Khmer Rouge regime.

In 2003, he made a documentary entitled “S21, The Khmer Rouge Death Machine”, about the notorious Tuol Sleng prison – now a genocide museum.

His other film “Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell”, released in 2005, is based on an interview with Kaing Guek Eav, otherwise known as Duch, who ran the prison.

It took four years for Panh to complete “The Missing Pictures”.

“It’s normal because the story is complicated. And if you want to clarify, you have to spend time. There’s not only one truth, but there are many many truths. And I tell the truth from my personal point of view. I hope this help my people to live better now.”

Panh is the first Cambodian ever to win an award at the prestigious Cannes festival, and he says the prize is important for his country.

“I’ve been working on this subject since many years ago. Film after film, I try to make something that stays logical... not to become a comedy, drama, and so on. I try to make something that works on memory. It is very necessary for each nation, for each nation to have this memory.”