Film
Little Gems (Les Pépites)
Little Gems (Les Pépites) is a 2016 documentary by Xavier de Lauzanne about a retired French couple and the children who scavenged Phnom Penh's dump.[1][2] Over more than 20 years, the couple changed the lives of more than 10,000 children.[1]
The story
In April 1995, Christian and Marie-France des Pallières met hundreds of children, aged six to fifteen, scavenging for food at the Phnom Penh dump.[3] The encounter led them to found Pour un Sourire d'Enfant (PSE), or For A Child's Smile.[3] From 1996, they lived in a hut beside the dump and gave the children meals, a place to wash and basic medical care.[3] PSE grew to support families, built a school and added career training.[3] By the time the film was made, about 7,000 pupils attended its schools, and about 3,500 former pupils had found work.[3]
The film includes interviews with the couple and with children seen both as children and as young adults.[4] Members of the des Pallières family appear as themselves, as does Sophorn Pich, the school's headmaster.[2] In 2000, the couple received the French Republic's Human Rights Award, and they later received Cambodia's highest honor from the King.[3]
Production and credits
The project took four years, between Cambodia and France.[3] It combined two years of filming in Phnom Penh with a Cambodian crew and about 350 hours of the family's own archive footage, including 16mm reels, edited over six months.[3] Some scenes used 3,000 extras.[3] De Lauzanne worked with the des Pallières and PSE students on the film.[5] Aloest Productions, Bonne Pioche and Sourire Prod produced it, and Patrice Leconte was its patron.[2][3] Camille Rocailleux composed the score, which includes the song "One of Us," performed by Hugh Coltman and Juliette Paquereau.[3] The film is in French and Khmer and runs 88 minutes.[2]
Release and reception
The film opened in French cinemas on October 5, 2016, a little more than a week after Christian des Pallières died.[3][5] It drew 175,000 spectators in its first 11 weeks and ranked third by admissions among the 88 documentaries released in France that year.[3] PSE's 2016 to 2017 activity report puts the total audience at 220,000.[6] It received the Audience Favorite label from Ecran Total and, from a unanimous jury, the Coup de Coeur award at the Atmosphères Festival.[3] The score won Best Original Soundtrack at SunnySide of the Doc in La Rochelle.[3]
The film was shown in Cambodia and France. The French Embassy in the United States held a screening in Washington, D.C., to raise funds for PSE.[5] It was an official selection of the 2018 Cambodia Town Film Festival, screening at the Art Theatre in Long Beach on September 15, 2018, in Khmer and French with English subtitles.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2018 OFFICIAL SELECTION: Les pépites Little Gems (archived)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 IMDb, Les pépites (2016)
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 Aloest Productions, Little Gems (Les Pépites) (2016-09-19)
- ↑ IMDb, Les pépites (2016), user reviews
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 VOA Khmer, A Meal for A Child's Smile, the Living Legacy of Christian des Pallieres (February 28, 2017)
- ↑ Pour un Sourire d'Enfant, Activity Report 2016 to 2017 (PDF)