Film

Rice People

Rice People (អ្នកស្រែ, Neak Sre) is a 1994 Cambodian drama by Rithy Panh about a farming family's struggle to bring in one season's rice crop.[1][2] It was Panh's first feature and the first Cambodian film submitted to the Academy Awards.[3][1]

Synopsis

The story is set in rural Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge years.[1] Under Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), Khmer Rouge policies had led to mass starvation and disease, and the film imagines the recovery of a rice culture that has fed Cambodians for thousands of years.[2] Poeuv and his wife Om farm a small and shrinking plot with their seven daughters, and their lives, joys and beliefs follow the rhythm of the rice.[4][1] Poeuv steps on a poisonous thorn, tries to remove it himself and dies of the infection after a long illness.[1][5] Om cannot cope with being head of the family. She turns to alcohol and gambling, and the villagers finally confine her in a cage.[1][3]

The work of the harvest and the care of her six sisters fall to the eldest daughter, Sakha, who is about 14.[1][5] She has her hair shaved so that she can take the place of an eldest son at her father's funeral.[5] The girls fight weeds, crabs and sparrows in the paddies, and after the family's debts are repaid the harvest is barely enough to live on.[5] A dream sequence shows the village set on fire by the Khmer Rouge.[3]

Production and credits

The film is adapted from Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan (No Harvest But a Thorn), a novel by the Malaysian author Shahnon Ahmad set in the state of Kedah; Wikipedia dates the novel to 1966 and DVD Savant to 1967.[1][5] Panh moved the story to Cambodia and also drew on the life of a woman he met in a refugee camp; he has said that Om was based on a real person.[3][2][5] Ève Deboise and Rithy Panh wrote the screenplay.[1] Jacques Bidou and Pierre-Alain Meier produced it, with JBA Production, La Sept Cinéma, ZDF, Thelma Film AG and TSR as production companies.[1][4][6] Jacques Bouquin was the cinematographer, and Andrée Davanture and Marie-Christine Rougerie edited the film.[1][5] The music is credited to Jean-Claude Brisson and Marc Marder; JBA Production credits Brisson with the sound and Marder with the music.[1][4]

Panh worked with a mostly French crew and filmed on 35mm.[5][2] The shoot took place in the village of Kamreang, about 48 km (30 miles) from Phnom Penh, and in the Kien Svay and Boeung Thom areas of Kandal Province on the banks of the Mekong River, under the watch of Khmer Rouge guerrillas.[1][3] The cast mixes professional and non-professional actors, and Panh had some of them, including city residents, live in the conditions shown in the story.[1][5] Chhim Naline, a dancer, at first resisted having her head shaved for the role of Sakha.[5]

Cast

  • Peng Phan as Om
  • Mom Soth as Poeuv
  • Chhim Naline as Sakha
  • Va Simorn as Sokhoeun
  • Sophy Sodany as Sokhon
  • Muong Danyda as Sophon
  • Pen Sopheary as Sophoeun
  • Proum Mary as Sophat
  • Sam Kourour as Sopheap[1]

Release and reception

The film premiered in the main competition at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, the first of Panh's films shown there.[1][7] It had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to festivals in cities including Namur, Tokyo, London, Cairo, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Seattle, New York and Boston.[1][4] It was submitted to the 67th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.[1]

JBA Production lists an Ecumenical Jury Prize at Singapore in 1995, and at Hawaii that year a best actress award for Peng Phan and a special jury award for the film.[4] Kino Tuškanac in Zagreb credits the ecumenical jury's praise to Cannes, and the best actress award and a special jury mention to Singapore.[8]

Wikipedia, IMDb and the Museum of Modern Art give the running time as 125 minutes; JBA Production and Kino Tuškanac give 130 minutes.[1][2][4][8] The film is in Khmer, with French and English subtitles.[4] Facets Video released it on DVD, with a video interview with Panh as an extra.[1][5] The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center holds it in its Rithy Panh collection, in French, English, Khmer, German and Italian versions.[9]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 Wikipedia, Rice People
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 The Museum of Modern Art, Les gens de la rizière/Neak sre (The Rice People). 1994. Directed by Rithy Panh (October 10, 2022)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Variety, Rice People (May 30, 1994)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 JBA Production, Rice People (January 15, 2018)
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 DVD Savant, Rice People (June 4, 2006)
  6. ↑ IMDb, The Rice People (1994)
  7. ↑ The Hollywood Reporter, Busan Fest to Honor Cambodia's Rithy Panh as Asian Filmmaker of the Year (August 14, 2013)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Kino Tuškanac, Rice People
  9. ↑ Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center, Rithy Panh collection list
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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:42.