Cambodian filmmaker uses fiction to teach facts about Khmer Rouge
| Phnom Penh, Cambodia
鈥� A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
Chhay Bora had never been to film school, but his first movie, 鈥淟ost Loves,鈥� made a Cambodian-American girl cry and an official from the Ministry of Culture collapse as he walked back to his seat after the screening.
The first feature film about the Khmer Rouge by a Cambodian director and actors in more than 20 years tells the story of the film director鈥檚 mother-in-law, who lost her husband, brother, father, and three children during the regime.
Mr. Bora said he made the feature for young Cambodians who don鈥檛 read foreign books or watch documentaries 鈥� and some of whom doubt the killings and starvation took place.
鈥淐ambodian-Americans and French Cambodians write a lot of books and produce a lot of documentaries, but those films don鈥檛 really have an impact among Cambodian people,鈥� he said. 鈥淒ocumentaries don鈥檛 seem real when people watch them; they cannot imagine what [it was really] like.鈥�
Bong Chanraingsey, an 18-year-old student, held back tears after a screening at the National University of Management in Phnom Penh. 鈥淚f I didn鈥檛 watch it, I wouldn鈥檛 believe that it鈥檚 a true story that happened in Cambodia,鈥� he said.
鈥淟ost Loves鈥� is the second film about the Khmer Rouge by a Cambodian director to come out in the past year (following the documentary 鈥�Enemies of the People鈥�). 鈥� 鈥楲ost Loves鈥� [tells the story of] one of the victims, who can present all of us to the world,鈥� says Bora, who hopes to bring his movie to the United States.
