Film
Last Night I Saw You Smiling
Last Night I Saw You Smiling (យប់មិញ បងឃើញអូនញញឹម) is a 2019 documentary by Kavich Neang about the last days of the White Building in Phnom Penh.[1] It was his first feature-length documentary.[2]
Synopsis
The White Building, also called the Municipal Apartments, was home to 493 families, ordinary residents and artists among them.[3][4] Kavich Neang was born there in 1987 and grew up inside.[1] In 2017 the families were forced to sell their units to a Japanese condominium developer and move away.[4] The film follows three families, including the director's own, as they pack their belongings, share memories and anxieties, and leave before the building is torn down.[5] Residents plead with officials for fair compensation and worry about what comes next.[2]
The building's history runs through the film. It was built in 1963 as a modernist symbol of an independent Cambodia, alongside new cultural institutions.[6] In 1975, after the Khmer Rouge came to power, the residents were forced out. In 1979 surviving artists and cultural workers returned, among them the director's parents, and the building became a cultural center again.[6] For Neang's family and neighbors, the 2017 eviction felt like the day the Khmer Rouge forced everyone to leave Phnom Penh.[7]
The director films his father wiping dust from his books until nearly 40 years of life are packed in boxes. In one scene his father searches for one of his sculptures and finds it wrapped in a black nylon bag. The soundtrack uses older songs, many released before the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975, including Khmer versions of mid-century Western pop hits. The last shots watch a corridor being knocked down, then move through open doorways into empty apartments.[6]
Production and credits
The White Building was designed during the New Khmer Architecture movement, a decade after independence.[3] The festival notes credit Cambodian architect Lu Bun Hap and Soviet architect Vladimir Bodiansky.[3] The BFI review credits Lu Ban Hap and the Ukraine-born French engineer Vladimir Bodiansky.[6]
Neang once hoped to shoot a fiction film in the building.[1] When demolition was set, he decided to film it as a final memory. He shot from May to August 2017 and gathered between 40 and 60 hours of footage.[7] He used a borrowed camera.[2]
Kavich Neang directed the film and was its cinematographer. Félix Rehm edited it, and Vincent Villa designed the sound and composed the music.[3] Neang has said he wanted a French editor for an outsider's view of the place where he had lived for many years.[7] Davy Chou and Daniel Mattes produced the film for Anti-Archive, with Marine Arrighi de Casanova of Apsara Films in France as co-producer. Steve Chen and Park Sungho were associate producers, and Danech San was production manager.[1] White Light Post and Kantana Sound Studio handled post-production, with Lee Chatametikool as post-production supervisor and Nuttacha Khajornkaitsakul as colorist.[1]
The project was presented at Docs-in-Progress at Visions du Réel and at DocAlliance Goes to Cannes in 2018.[1] In 2018 it received post-production support from the Purin Pictures Post-Production Fund, Talents Tokyo Next Masters Support, the Asian Network of Documentaries Fund, the Asian Cinema Fund in Busan, the Graham Foundation and the Kone Foundation of Finland.[8] The film is in Khmer and runs 78 minutes.[1]
Release and reception
The film premiered in January 2019 in the Bright Future competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it won the NETPAC Award.[3][1] The Nation called it the first Cambodian film to be recognized by the festival.[7] Its other 2019 awards were:[1]
- Special Jury Prize, Jeonju International Film Festival
- Special Jury Award, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
- Best Director, Documentary, Tacoma Film Festival
- Best Image, Janela de Cinema do Recife
- Special Mention and Student Jury Prize, Tokyo FilmEx
In 2019 the film also played in competition at Cinéma du Réel in Paris and at festivals in Seoul, Yogyakarta and Tehran. It screened at Visions du Réel, Art of the Real at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Open Doors at Locarno and the Singapore International Film Festival.[1] EBS released it on television and video on demand in South Korea in August 2019.[1]
The film was an official selection of the 2019 Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California.[9] It had its Cambodian premiere at the Cambodia International Film Festival in Phnom Penh in March 2020.[1] In 2025 Neang presented it at the 28th Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, Maine, in a program of Cambodian films.[10]
The BFI called the documentary a visual poem and a loving tribute to the White Building and its cultural and political history.[6] The Guardian called it "a touching and meditative cine-essay about community and home."[11] A review in Educational Media Reviews Online found it a poignant slice of life but did not recommend it, judging its long shots of rooms disjointed.[12]
Watch
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 Anti-Archive
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Los Angeles Times, Young filmmakers train a fresh lens on turbulent Cambodia (2019-08-27)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 web.archive.org, Cambodia Town Film Festival (2019-08-12)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 San Diego Asian Film Festival, Last Night I Saw You Smiling (2019)
- ↑ IMDb
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 BFI, Last Night I Saw You Smiling review: poignant document (2022-09-10)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 The Nation (Thailand), Winning pictures (2019-02-06)
- ↑ ANTI-ARCHIVE, LAST NIGHT I SAW YOU SMILING
- ↑ Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2019 Official Selection: Last Night I Saw You Smiling (archived)
- ↑ Hamilton College, Guyot-Bender Curated Films at Maine International Film Festival (2025-08-29)
- ↑ Metrograph, Last Night I Saw You Smiling
- ↑ Educational Media Reviews Online, Last Night I Saw You Smiling (2023-12-05)