Film
Camp 32
Camp 32 (ជំរំ ៣២) is a documentary by Andrew Blogg and Tim Purdie about Hom Chhorn's search for the Khmer Rouge labor camp he survived as a child.[1][2] No official record of the camp has been found.[3]
The story
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and forced the people of Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside to do farm work. The film gives an estimated two million people killed, and many thousands tortured, over the next four years.[3]
Bunhom Chhorn, known as Hom, and his family lost everything they owned and were sent to Camp 32. Hom was five or six years old.[3][4][1] He was forced to do hard labor in the rice fields and suffered severe malnutrition and dysentery.[3] In the camp he saw cruelty, starvation, disease and executions.[4] He was sent into the jungle with 150 other children to fend for themselves, and only he and three other boys came back.[3]
Three members of his family died there, among them his father and siblings, who were killed by the Khmer Rouge.[3][1] The camp held more than 30,000 people, and up to 30,000 may have died there.[1][3] After 33 years, Hom returned to Cambodia to find proof of the camp and of the source of his nightmares.[1] The filmmakers have said their goal is to change the absence of any official record of Camp 32.[3]
Production and credits
Andrew Blogg and Tim Purdie wrote and directed the film, and it was Blogg's first feature.[3][5] Hom Chhorn, a Cambodian Australian survivor, appears as himself.[2][4] In 2015, Voice of America credited the film to Hom himself, as Cambodian Australian filmmaker Chhorn Bunhom. Making it was at times deeply painful for him and his family, and he kept going because he believed that stopping would let his tormentors silence him.[6][7]
The film combines personal narrative, survivor testimony, archival research and animation. Animation recreates events that could not be filmed without causing the participants fresh trauma.[2] It was filmed in Melbourne, Phnom Penh and Battambang, and its countries of origin are Australia and Cambodia.[2][4] The film is in English.[4] Its running time differs between listings: 65 minutes at Bophana, 72 on IMDb and 80 at the University of Melbourne. IMDb dates it 2014 and Bophana 2015.[1][4][2]
Release and reception
The film premiered at the Cambodian International Film Festival in Phnom Penh in 2015, where it was one of the festival's highlights.[5][6] It ends with a reunion of survivors.[7] That year, The Ying Group acquired it for international distribution under a ten-year license.[2]
As an official selection of the 2016 Cambodia Town Film Festival, it had its Long Beach premiere at noon on September 3, 2016.[3] The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh screened it on December 7, 2019, and holds a copy in its documentary collections under reference DFD_VI_003787.[1][8] The film has also been used in university courses and public workshops on genocide, ethical storytelling and Southeast Asian history.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center, November to December 2019 program
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 University of Melbourne, Figshare, Camp 32 (May 30, 2025)
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2016 Official Selection: Camp 32 (archived)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 IMDb, Camp 32 (2014)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 FilmInk, PRIDE Queer Film Festival: 8th to 14th March: Backlot Perth (February 22, 2023)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Voice of America, Cambodian Filmmakers Finding Broader Recognition (December 14, 2015)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Voice of America Chinese, Cambodian filmmakers gain wider recognition (December 15, 2015)
- ↑ Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center, catalog listing, Camp 32