Film
Khmerica
Khmerica is a 2025 short documentary by Thibaut Amri, Antoine Guide and Lucas Sénécaut about Cambodian Americans deported to Cambodia.[1] It follows three men, Joker, Kookie and Djumbo, who came to the United States as refugee children and were deported after serving prison sentences.[1]
Synopsis
As children, the three men fled Pol Pot's regime and the genocide with their families and grew up in the United States.[1] They grew up in poverty and were drawn into street gangs and petty crime, until they faced prison and, from 2002, deportation.[1] The film follows their daily lives in Cambodia as they reconnect with other Khmericans, join new Khmer families and live with what remains of their old lives and an uncertain future.[1][2] They live in a double exile, still foreigners between their old families and their new ones.[1]
Production and credits
The filmmakers came to Cambodia through several collaborations with the director Rithy Panh. They learned Khmer and got to know a group of Khmericans.[1][3] The project took five years to develop and reach international festivals.[4] In 2022 it was one of the feature-length projects shown at Qumra, run by the Doha Film Institute. At that stage it was a documentary feature in post-production about a 36-year-old Khmerican returnee and the pieces of his broken personal history and years of exile.[5] The Doha Film Institute's listing follows a returnee named Sokha, deported seven years earlier, who still feels like a foreigner in Cambodia.[6]
Amri, Guide and Sénécaut wrote, directed and produced the film.[2][6] Rithy Panh was also a producer.[6] Romain Rampillon was director of photography, and Anna Brunstein and Céline Kélépikis edited the film.[1] Gilles Bernardeau and Jean-Christophe Sabatier handled sound.[1] The production companies were Avant la Nuit, Anupheap Production and L'Œil Vif productions.[1] The film is in English and Khmer, with English and French subtitles.[1] Hors du bocal distributes it.[2]
Release and reception
Khmerica had its world premiere at Visions du Réel in 2025.[1] The same year it was in the medium-length competition at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival.[7] In 2026 it was in the official international competition of the Festival Jean Rouch and received a special mention from the festival's Migrations Jury.[2] The jury said the film brings to light a little-known migration story and the difficulty the men face in building a community in Cambodia after deportation. It called the film a sensitive and brutal, humorous and tragic portrait of their everyday life.[2]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 Visions du Réel, Khmerica
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Comité du Film Ethnographique, Festival Jean Rouch: Khmerica, un film de Thibaut Amri (2026)
- ↑ IMDb, Khmerica (2025)
- ↑ Khmer Times, French producer sees growing global role for Cambodian cinema (September 21, 2026)
- ↑ Screen Daily, Doha Film Institute unveils 45 projects to be showcased at Qumra 2022 (March 2, 2022)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Doha Film Institute, Khmerica
- ↑ Documentary Weekly, Champs-Élysées Film Festival: 7 of the Best Indie Documentaries (June 11, 2025)