Film

First They Killed My Father (film)

First They Killed My Father is a 2017 Khmer-language feature film directed by Angelina Jolie, adapted from Loung Ung's memoir of the same name.[1] It follows a young girl's survival under the Khmer Rouge, seen through her eyes.[1][2] Its Khmer title means "First the Khmer Rouge Killed My Father."[3]

Synopsis

The story begins in 1975. Loung is five years old, one of seven children of a government official, and her family lives comfortably in Phnom Penh.[4] When the Khmer Rouge take the city and empty it, the family is forced into the countryside.[2] They hide as ordinary working people to escape persecution.[4] At a labor camp, food is restricted, possessions are taken and foreign goods, even medicine, are forbidden. Loung's oldest sister, Keav, dies of dysentery. Soldiers take her father away.[3] Her mother sends Loung and her siblings Kim and Chou away to pose as orphans.[2][3]

Loung is trained as a child soldier and taught to lay mines.[4] Later she learns that soldiers have taken her mother and youngest sister. After Vietnamese shelling destroys her camp, she flees with other civilians and finds Chou and Kim again in a refugee camp. The surviving siblings reunite with their older brothers when the war ends. The film closes with the children praying with monks for their lost family in a ruined Buddhist temple.[3]

The story covers Loung's life from age five to nine.[5] Its synopsis on Rotten Tomatoes puts the number of Cambodians who died under the Khmer Rouge at nearly two million, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival gives more than two million.[6][7]

Production and credits

Netflix announced the adaptation on July 23, 2015. Jolie and Loung Ung wrote the screenplay, and Jolie produced the film with Rithy Panh.[3] Michael Vieira and Ted Sarandos were also producers, and Maddox Jolie-Pitt was an executive producer.[3] Anthony Dod Mantle was the cinematographer, Xavier Box and Patricia Rommel edited the film, and Marco Beltrami composed the music.[7] Bophana Production, Jolie Pas Productions and Netflix produced it.[8][9]

Filming began in Siem Reap in early November 2015 and ended in Battambang in February 2016, with more filming in Phnom Penh. The film had a budget of $22 million.[3] It was made in Cambodia with a Cambodian cast and crew and shot in Khmer.[2] Some of the crew had lived through the war themselves. Therapists were on set when the production recreated the violence of those years.[2] To show the world from a five-year-old's point of view, crew members walked on their knees to learn what a child could see and reach.[2]

Cast

  • Sareum Srey Moch as Loung Ung
  • Phoeung Kompheak as Pa Ung
  • Sveng Socheata as Ma Ung
  • Mun Kimhak as Kim
  • Run Malyna as Chou
  • Oun Srey Neang as Keav
  • Heng Dara as Meng
  • Khoun Sothea as Khouy
  • Sarun Nika as Geak
  • Tharoth Sam as the child soldier leader
  • Reth Tiger as a Khmer Rouge soldier

Loung Ung appears as herself.[3][8]

Release and reception

The film premiered in Siem Reap on February 18, 2017. It screened at the Telluride Film Festival and the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Netflix released it worldwide on September 15, 2017.[3] It also opened in a limited theatrical release that day.[4] The film was an official selection of the 2017 Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California. It screened on September 16, 2017, at the Art Theatre Long Beach, followed by a question-and-answer session with Loung Ung, the film's writer and executive producer.[5]

In 2017, Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 88 percent from 65 reviews, and Metacritic gave it 72 out of 100 from 22 critics.[3] Tara Brady of The Irish Times called Jolie "an exquisite craftswoman."[6]

Cambodia chose the film as its entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards; it was not nominated.[3] Awards and nominations include:

  • Nomination, BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language (2018)
  • Nomination, Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film[7]
  • Nominations for best foreign-language film from the Critics' Choice, Online Film Critics Society, Satellite and Women's Image Network awards
  • Bronze Frog at Camerimage for Anthony Dod Mantle (November 2017)
  • Hollywood Foreign Language Film Award for Jolie and Loung Ung (November 5, 2017)
  • National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award for Jolie (November 28, 2017)[3]

Related works

The film adapts First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, Loung Ung's 2000 account of her childhood under the Khmer Rouge.[1][2][4]

Watch

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Netflix, First They Killed My Father
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 NPR, 'This Is Their Film': Angelina Jolie Tells A Story Of Khmer Rouge Survival (September 13, 2017)
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 Wikipedia, First They Killed My Father (film)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The Atlantic, 'First They Killed My Father' Is a Surprising, Devastating Triumph (September 2017)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2017 Official Selection: FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER (archived)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Rotten Tomatoes, First They Killed My Father
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Palm Springs International Film Festival, First They Killed My Father (2018)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 IMDb, First They Killed My Father (2017)
  9. ↑ Cambodia Film Commission, First They Killed My Father
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This page was last edited on 27 September 2026, at 06:00.