Film
Angkar (film)
Angkar is a 2018 documentary by Neary Adeline Hay, who returns to Cambodia with her father to face the Khmer Rouge cadres who persecuted him.[1][2] It was Hay's first feature film.[1]
Synopsis
Khonsaly Hay returns to his village in Cambodia after more than 40 years in France.[2] In Ta Saeng, the detention village where he spent four years under the Khmer Rouge, he meets former persecutors who agreed to speak on camera.[1][3] Survivors there live next door to the people responsible for their suffering.[2] He also searches for the family and friends he was forced to leave behind.[2] In one scene he walks through the site of his former camp, where a bridge seems smaller than he remembers.[4]
The film sets his story in the Khmer Rouge years, from 1975 to 1979, when the IFC Center puts the death toll at nearly two million people.[2] In Khmer, "Angkar" means "The Organization," the faceless power that made the rules and watched everywhere.[2] Khonsaly explains in the film that the word covered people who served the regime willingly or under pressure.[1]
Production and credits
The film combines interviews with former persecutors and aerial views of the Cambodian landscape, shown as abstract images.[1] In a French voiceover, Hay reflects with her father on his homecoming.[1] The film uses no archival footage and relies on storytelling and oral history.[4] Manon Falise edited it, and The Cup of Tea produced it.[2] It is in Khmer and French with English subtitles and runs 71 minutes. Its listed countries of origin are Cambodia and France.[2]
Release and reception
Angkar was an official selection of the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam and Cinéma du Réel.[2] It had its New York premiere at IFC Center on June 17, 2018, as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, followed by a discussion with Hay and John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch.[2] The film was an official selection of the 2018 Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach.[1] In 2021, The Guardian called it a "sublime documentary" about the legacy of the Khmer Rouge.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2018 OFFICIAL SELECTION: ANGKAR (archived)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 IFC Center, Angkar - IFC Center (2018-06-17)
- ↑ True Story, Angkar
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Guardian, Angkar review: sublime documentary contends with legacy of Khmer Rouge (August 9, 2021)