Film
Vakhim
Vakhim is a 2024 Italian documentary by Francesca Pirani about a boy adopted from Cambodia and the search for his birth mother.[1] Pirani is his adoptive mother, and the film tells the story of the search for her son's origins.[2]
Synopsis
Vakhim was adopted in Cambodia at the age of four and arrived in Italy in 2008. He spoke only Khmer, and everything around him was unfamiliar. To adapt, he let go of the traces of his short early life. His older sister, Maklin, was also in Italy.[3] He was raised in Rome.[4]
Nine years after the adoption, a letter arrived from his birth mother asking for news of her son.[5] His adoptive parents, Francesca and Simone, decided to go and look for her.[3] At 18, Vakhim returned to Cambodia with them to reconnect with his roots.[4] Maklin, who had also been adopted in Italy, joined the journey, and the film follows the two siblings as they travel to find their birth mother.[5][6] Their mother had been photographed holding her four children, who were later adopted in Italy.[5] The film shows the first, painful meeting between Vakhim and his birth mother.[5]
Production
Francesca Pirani wrote the script. Luca Criscenti produced the film, Stefano Viali was the creative producer, and Nicola Moruzzi edited it. Massimo Intoppa and Luciano Usai were the photographers.[7] The documentary was produced for Land Comunicazioni with Valeria Adilardi's collaboration, and its music was composed by Tony Carnevale.[2]
The film grew out of the large amount of home footage the family had recorded, starting with images of four-year-old Vakhim at the Institute for Poor Children in Phnom Penh in November 2008.[2] Pirani wrote the story in May 2019. It was selected for the documentary section of the Premio Solinas, and in September 2019 it was one of five finalists, though it did not win.[2] She wrote the screenplay during the COVID-19 lockdown.[2] The project was selected among 20 of 150 candidates for the Bio to B Industry Days 2024 pitching forum in Bologna.[2]
Pirani and Stefano Viali scouted locations and cast the film in Cambodia in February 2023, and the Cambodian scenes were filmed in August 2023.[2] A Cambodian farming family took part to represent moments from the childhood of Vakhim and his siblings. Cambodian children played the young Vakhim and Maklin and acted out remembered scenes: a field of butterflies, leeches, and Vakhim taking a cow to pasture.[2]
Pirani built the film by combining extensive existing footage with newly filmed material and online archival images evoking Cambodia. She chose not to use interviews.[2] The film has a dual time structure that links Vakhim's first months in Italy with his memories.[2] Pirani says the reconstructed memories are more film-like, while the travel diary of the journey is fully realistic.[1] She is also the narrator. The narration was first written in the first person as a letter to Vakhim, and she and Moruzzi later reworked it in the third person, like a diary.[2]
Pirani names separation as the central theme of the film: from his mother, his village, his language and his siblings.[2] She says she also wanted to raise the question of Cambodian mothers recruited for adoptions. When the letters from Vakhim's mother began to arrive in 2017, when he was 13, the family began to learn of the adoption scandal in Cambodia, which soon became an international case.[2] Pirani says her aim was to tell a story about losing and recovering one's memory and past, not to accuse organizations or juvenile courts.[5]
Release and reception
The film was presented on September 6, 2024, at the Notti Veneziane (Venetian Nights), a side section of the Giornate degli Autori in Venice, in collaboration with Isola Edipo.[2][1] It won the Audience Award at the RIDF, Rome International Documentary Festival, and the Audience Award at SalinaDocFest 2024. It received a Special Mention for the SNCCI Critics' Prize at the African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival (FESCAAAL).[8]
In March 2025 the film screened at the 14th Cambodia International Film Festival in Phnom Penh, at the Institut français.[8] Festival director Cedric Eloy presented it as part of the festival's role as a bridge between Cambodia and its diaspora.[9]
The film was an official selection of the 2025 Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California.[3] It screened on September 14, 2025, at the Art Theatre of Long Beach.[3] Li-Da Kruger, co-founder of the Reconnecting Cambodia Project, moderated the question-and-answer session.[6] In November 2025 it played at the Cinema delle Province in Rome, with Pirani present at three of the four screenings.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Isola Edipo, VAKHIM by Francesca Pirani (2024)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Left, Francesca Pirani: «Storia di Vakhim e di affetti tra due mondi lontani» (2024-09-06)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2025 Official Selection: Vakhim (archived)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Phnom Penh Post, CIFF 2025: A glimpse of Cambodia and emerging cinema (2025-03-13)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Oubliette Magazine, "Vakhim" documentario di Francesca Pirani (2024-09-09)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Reconnecting Cambodia, Events
- ↑ Cambodia Town Film Festival, CTFF 2025 Official Selection: Vakhim - Cambodia Town Film Festival (2025-08-21)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Collettivo Chiaroscuro, Vakhim by Francesca Pirani at Cinema delle Province, Rome (2025-11-12)
- ↑ Phnom Penh Post, CIFF 2025: Celebrating Resilience, Innovation, and Cultural Connection (2025-03-22)