Creator
Rob Lemkin
Rob Lemkin is a British documentary director and producer who co-directed Enemies of the People with Thet Sambath.
Rob Lemkin is a British documentary director and producer who made Enemies of the People with the Cambodian journalist Thet Sambath.[1][2] He founded and directs Old Street Films and has produced and directed more than 50 documentaries for major television networks.[3][1]
Career
Lemkin began as a musician. His first film featured Nina Simone, and he went on to make films about Chet Baker and Curtis Mayfield.[4] He then turned to investigative journalism and spent 15 years making television segments and historical documentaries.[4] His films include Who Really Killed Aung San? (BBC2, 1997), Malaya: The Undeclared War (BBC2, 1998), China: Handle with Care (Channel 4, 2001), Bearers of the Sword (Channel 4, 2002) and The Real Dr. Evil (BBC/A&E, 2003).[3] His BBC documentary on the Malayan revolutionary Chin Peng, The Undeclared War, included an account that connected Chin Peng with Pol Pot in 1975.[5] For more than 20 years he has made films about empire and British colonialism, including BBC films in the 1990s on Burma, Malaysia and Thailand.[6]
Enemies of the People
In September 2006 Lemkin traveled to Phnom Penh to make a film about the Cambodian genocide and the Khmer Rouge trials. He hired Thet Sambath as a translator and fixer, and when he learned that Sambath already had access to Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's second-in-command, the two decided to make a film together about Sambath's investigation.[7][4][5] Lemkin filmed with Sambath for the last three years of the production and helped shape the interviews and questions.[8] The two traveled from village to village to find the lower-level killers, and they recorded testimony from foot soldiers up to Nuon Chea, known as Brother Number Two.[7][2] The interviews with Nuon Chea ran to more than 60 hours and called for close work on the transcripts.[4]
Lemkin has said the film set out to build human connections with former Khmer Rouge members and to encourage truth-telling rather than punishment.[1] He and Sambath refused to give their hundreds of hours of tape to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, because they had promised those they interviewed that the testimony would be used only for history.[7] Lemkin named The Killing Fields, Shoah, Heir to an Execution and Darwin's Nightmare among the films that shaped his work, and he modeled the camera movements on Shoah.[4] A two-disc special-edition DVD was meant to place more of the material in the public domain.[1]
The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize in 2010.[2][4] It was recognized at the Full Frame, True/False, One World and Human Rights Watch New York festivals, was shortlisted for an Academy Award and was nominated for a Writers Guild Award.[4][7] In 2010 Lemkin and Sambath were developing Enemies of the People Part Two, a political thriller about conflict within the Khmer Rouge, including those who tried to kill Pol Pot, built from footage they had already shot.[4]
Later work
Lemkin directed African Apocalypse (2020), in which the British-Nigerian poet and activist Femi Nylander travels through West Africa to trace the legacy of a colonial killer.[9][10] The film uses Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as its frame and centers the testimony of the people of Niger met along the way.[10] It has been shown in Niger and internationally.[6]
Works
- Enemies of the People (Film)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 New Mandala, Interview with Rob Lemkin, director of Enemies of the People
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 PBS POV, Enemies of the People
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Enemies of the People press release (Cambodian Heritage)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 IndieWire, Killing Fields of Cambodia explained: Rob Lemkin on 'Enemies of the People' (August 5, 2010)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 PBS POV, Enemies of the People discussion guide (2011)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 CAPAS, Heidelberg University, African Apocalypse (2024)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Jewish Journal, The second Lemkin's genocide story frames the 'Enemies' (January 13, 2011)
- ↑ Radio Prague International, Untiring journalist elicits groundbreaking testimonies from ex-Khmer Rouge men (March 17, 2010)
- ↑ Rob Lemkin, IMDb news
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 BFI, "Colonialism is the ultimate cancel culture": Femi Nylander and Rob Lemkin on African Apocalypse (October 30, 2020)