Creator
Thibaut Amri
Thibaut Amri is a French producer and director who co-directed the documentary Khmerica.
Thibaut Amri is a Franco-Tunisian film producer and director who co-directed the documentary Khmerica with Antoine Guide and Lucas Sénécaut.[1][2] He co-founded the French production company Avant la Nuit in 2021.[1]
Career
Amri trained at the Faculty of Law and Cinema in Montpellier and then at the Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris, run by La Fémis and the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.[1] Since 2021 films he has produced have screened and won prizes at festivals including Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, IndieLisboa, IDFA, the Singapore International Film Festival and Gérardmer.[1]
He is one of the producers of Until the Orchid Blooms (2024), Polen Ly's first documentary feature, about an Indigenous woman in northeastern Cambodia whose village is disappearing beneath a hydroelectric dam. His fellow producers were Rithy Panh and Lucas Sénécaut.[3][4]
Khmerica
Khmerica was Amri's first documentary as a director, and Rithy Panh produced it.[1] Amri, Guide and Sénécaut came to Cambodia through several collaborations with Panh. They learned Khmer and got to know a group of Khmericans, Cambodian refugees who grew up in the United States and were deported to Cambodia after serving prison sentences.[2] The three share directing and screenwriting credits.[5] The film took five years to develop and reach international festivals.[6]
Khmerica is a 41-minute film from Cambodia, France and Qatar, in English and Khmer. Its producers were Amri and Guide for Avant la Nuit, Panh for Anupheap Production, and Sénécaut for L'Œil Vif Productions.[2] It took part in First Cut Lab Doha in 2022.[7] The film had its world premiere in the International Medium Length & Short Film Competition at Visions du Réel in 2025, where it received a Special Mention from the Jury.[2][7] In 2026 it was selected for the international competition at the Festival Jean Rouch and received the Migrations Jury's Special Mention.[1]
Works
- Khmerica (Film)
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Comité du Film Ethnographique, Festival Jean Rouch, Khmerica (May 15, 2026)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Visions du Réel, Khmerica (2025)
- ↑ Taiwan International Documentary Festival, Until the Orchid Blooms (2026)
- ↑ Singapore International Film Festival, Until the Orchid Blooms (October 30, 2024)
- ↑ Doha Film Institute, Khmerica
- ↑ Khmer Times, French producer sees growing global role for Cambodian cinema (September 21, 2026)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 First Cut Lab, First Cut Lab documentaries awarded at Visions du Réel (April 14, 2025)