Creator
Sok Visal
Sok Visal is a Phnom Penh-based director and music producer who founded the label KlapYaHandz and the production company 802AD Films.
Sok Visal is a Phnom Penh film director, producer and music producer who founded the hip hop label KlapYaHandz and the production company 802AD Films.[1][2] He made his first feature, Gems on the Run, in 2013, directed and produced Poppy Goes to Hollywood Redux in 2017, and co-directed In the Life of Music with Caylee So in 2018.[3]
Early career
Visal grew up in France, and his company biography says he grew up between France and the United States. He came to Cambodia in 1993, after the civil war.[2][4] A 2026 podcast profile dates his return to the late 1990s.[5] He first worked in the international relations department of Cambodia's Ministry of Defense, taught French at the Alliance française and then joined Total Cambodia. There he moved from the technical team that fitted out service stations to running advertising and promotions.[4] He began as a graffiti artist and rapper, and he later worked as a creative director for advertising agencies.[1][6]
Music
From 1993 to 2000 Visal immersed himself in Khmer culture, and with American friends from hip hop culture he promoted hip hop in Cambodia on the radio and at events. In 2001 he began sampling old Cambodian songs and producing CDs, which were sold through a piracy network.[4] He founded KlapYaHandz Records in 2005.[4] Mekong Movies calls it Cambodia's first hip hop and alternative music label. The label drew on Cambodia's rock and roll from before the Khmer Rouge and on his own interest in Khmer music.[2] In 2019 ten artists were signed to KlapYaHandz. His building in Phnom Penh's Tuol Kork district held the label's studio, a film editing suite and a dormitory for musicians.[1] Visal grew up listening to American hip hop and soul, and he has said those influences can be heard in the music he produces.[1]
Film
Visal founded his production company in 2009. Chinese Shadows gives its first name as 391 Films and says he re-established it as 802AD Productions in 2015. Focus Cambodia names it 802AD Films from 2009.[3][1] The company has made television and web commercials for ANZ Bank, Tiger Beer, Metfone, Cellcard, Wing and Yamaha, and he also produces music videos and television shows.[1] His filmography includes the television series Loy 9, Season 1, from 2011.[3] He is a co-founder and line producer of Mekong Movies.[2]
Gems on the Run (Kroab Pich) was a gangster comedy that he co-directed with Quentin Clausin, with a director's cut in 2016.[3] His second feature, Poppy Goes to Hollywood, was his first as sole director. He adapted it after meeting the screenwriters Michael Hodgson and Richard Johnson in Phnom Penh. The film puts transgender women and other gender-nonconforming performers at the center of its story, and it was set to premiere in Phnom Penh in late April 2016. Visal said it might be Cambodia's first mainstream genderqueer-friendly feature, and that he wanted it to tell of the struggles of Cambodia's LGBT community with plenty of humor.[7] The 105-minute Poppy Goes to Hollywood Redux (2017) is a comedy. It was selected for A Window on Asian Cinema at the Busan International Film Festival in 2017.[3]
In the Life of Music (2018) follows generations of a family through Cambodian history before, during and after the Pol Pot era. It screened at festivals abroad before its premiere at the Cambodia International Film Festival in March 2018. In May 2018 Visal and Caylee So won Best Director at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.[1] In 2019 he was developing a fourth feature, the horror thriller In the Shade, about a Khmer-American man sent to Phnom Penh to find his uncle, a former Khmer Rouge officer. Visal said the film deals with Cambodia's trauma and the effects of the Khmer Rouge, French colonialism and U.S. bombing.[1]
Visal's producing credits include Karmalink (2021), Aniccam (2020) and California Dreaming (2019).[6] He was a co-producer of Karmalink, which he said was the first science fiction film set in Cambodia with Khmer actors and characters. It links Buddhist ideas of karma with science, technology and virtual reality, and it was made in Cambodia with Khmer actors and a mostly Cambodian crew.[8]
Later work
Visal co-founded Write & Eat, a community initiative that supports Southeast Asian writers and filmmakers. As of 2026 his work looks at how technology, entrepreneurship and culture can give artists in Southeast Asia more independence and opportunity.[5]
Works
- Gems on the Run (Film)
- In the Life of Music (Film)
- Poppy Goes to Hollywood (Film)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Focus Cambodia, Made in the Shade
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Mekong Movies, The team
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Chinese Shadows, SOK Visal
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The Good Life, Sok Visal: « le Cambodge assiste à la naissance d'une ... » (October 31, 2023)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Khmer Voices, Heart x Culture x Legacy: But at What Cost? With Pioneer of Cambodian Hip Hop Sok Visal (July 15, 2026)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 IMDb, Sok Visal
- ↑ Phnom Penh Post, Coming out: Film places 'ladyboys' at the fore (April 29, 2016)
- ↑ Phnom Penh Post, Kingdom's first sci-fi pic gets big debut (February 18, 2025)