Los Angeles Times - 27.08.2019

LATIMES.COM TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019A

THE WORLD

PHNOM PENH, Cambo-
dia — When Kavich Neang
learned that Cambodian au-
thorities were going to
knock down the storied
apartment building where
he’d been raised and replace
it with luxury condos, the
young filmmaker’s first
thought was to grab a video
camera.
“I just wanted to capture
what my family and every-
one else was feeling,” Neang
said. “I had always thought I
would shoot a fiction film
there. But now I just wanted
to have some memory of the
place.”
With a borrowed camera,
Neang shot for five weeks in-
side Phnom Penh’s decaying
White Building as the wreck-
ing ball loomed in 2017, re-
cording his parents and
neighbors as they packed
their belongings, pleaded
with officials for fair com-
pensation and fretted about
an uncertain future in the
fast-changing Cambodian
capital.
The footage would form
Neang’s first feature-length
documentary, “Last Night I
Saw You Smiling,” which
this year won awards at festi-
vals from Rotterdam to Los
Angeles. One critic called it
“an important film about
how to deal with concepts
like origin and home in our
world.”
It was the latest success-
ful project by Anti-Archive, a
small Cambodian produc-
tion house that is reviving in-
dependent cinema in a
country where artistic
voices have often been side-
lined by turbulent politics.
Anti-Archive has pro-
duced or co-produced
nearly a dozen films since its
launch in 2014 by Neang and
two other directors, French
Cambodian Davy Chou and
Taiwanese American Steve
Chen. A fourth partner,
South Korean-born Park
Sung-ho, joined in 2016.
Members of the collective
work behind the scenes on
one another’s films, and oc-
casionally appear in front of
the camera as well. Their
films have won honors at fes-
tivals worldwide, helping to
put Cambodian cinema
back on the global map and
boosting a new generation of
filmmakers raised in the
shadows of the horrors in-
flicted four decades ago by
the genocidal forces of the
Khmer Rouge.
The totalitarian commu-
nist movement blamed for
the deaths of about 2 million
Cambodians viewed most
art and film as decadent,
particularly anything seen
to have foreign influences.
When the Khmer Rouge
took over Phnom Penh in
1975, the occupants of the
White Building — a govern-
ment housing complex
adopted by artists — fled the
city along with most other
residents of the capital.
Over the next four years,
many filmmakers, writers,
painters and intellectuals
were killed or went into exile.
By the time the Khmer
Rouge was driven from
power in 1979, a once vibrant
domestic film industry had
vanished. Film prints had
been destroyed or gone
missing, and nearly all
movie houses had been shut
down.
Today, Cambodia has
one of Asia’s fastest growing

economies, flush with in-

vestment from China. But

under the three-decade rule

of President Hun Sen, free

speech, which saw a resur-

gence after the ouster of Pol

Pot’s Khmer Rouge, has

been sharply curtailed. The

government has shut down

independent newspapers

and radio stations and re-

cently jailed a Cambodian

translator on a Russian sex-

trafficking documentary

that authorities dismissed

as “fake news.”

Though Anti-Archive’s

films are not overtly political

— many revolve around ordi-

nary people seeking to make

a place amid the rapid re-

development of contempo-

rary Cambodia — they rep-

resent a radical departure

from the supernatural hor-

ror films and broad come-

dies that dominate the

country’s mainstream cine-

ma.

Challenging those con-

ventions is a way to make a

statement, Neang said.

“We are all traumatized

from the past,” said Neang, a

slim 31-year-old with a shock

of dark hair. “My parents al-

ways talk about it. Growing

up, they always told me,

‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’

It makes you distrustful. So

as a society we don’t take

chances.”

Neang’s father was a

sculptor, and his mother had

a brief career as a dancer. He

had considered pursuing

traditional music until he

worked with a nonprofit

group that was producing a

short film, and soon he was

hooked.

Neang was encouraged

by Chou, the 35-year-old

dean of the group, whose

parents raised him in

France after the Khmer

Rouge came to power. Chou

made his first visit to

Cambodia a decade ago and

found only two movie

halls in Phnom Penh, each

screening low-budget horror

films.

“It was a desert,” he re-

called.

Chou, whose grandfather

had been a film producer in

Cambodia before the Khmer

Rouge ascended to power,

had a production company

in France and had already

directed and produced sev-

eral films when he came to

Cambodia in 2014 to shoot

his first feature, “Diamond

Island,” about a young vil-

lager who travels to the capi-

tal to work on a construction

site.

Chou wanted to cast non-

professional actors and

spent his days scouting the

city for talent. In the eve-

nings, he occasionally in-

vited about a dozen friends

and crew members to his

house for drinks and a film

by a contemporary Asian di-

rector.

“In this country it’s hard

to have access to art house

films on the big screen, so it

was a way to open minds

about other kinds of films,

and it made me very happy,”

Chou said.

One evening in 2015, he

screened “Tropical Malady,”

a dark, dreamlike romance

by director Apichatpong

Weerasethakul, the first en-

try from Thailand to win a

prize at the Cannes Film

Festival. Danech San, then a

23-year-old budding interior

designer, recalled being baf-

fled and entranced.

“My first thought was,

this is totally different from

anything I’ve seen in thea-

ters,” San recalled. “I didn’t

understand it all, but the im-

ages stuck in my mind.”

The daughter of a soldier

from rural Cambodia, San

was used to conforming. She

liked black coffee, but her

mother thought it too mas-

culine. She was interested in

the arts, but her parents

thought she’d never make a

living.

“I wasn’t used to speak-

ing my thoughts,” San said.

“But we’d watch these films,

and Davy would ask what do

you think about a certain

scene or a certain technique.

He would push a little bit,

step by step. It was a space

with people who were really

supportive.”

San worked as a produc-

tion manager on two Anti-

Archive films and took a

filmmaking course, then be-

gan thinking about writing

her own script. In 2017, Anti-

Archive launched a crowd-

funding campaign to raise

money to finance three short

films by first-time female di-

rectors — including San,

now 27.

The goal was to raise

$15,000 in 15 days. They

ended up receiving more

than $28,000.

Last year, San’s 20-min-

ute film, “A Million Years,”

about a woman’s reflections

as she and a friend visit a

riverfront restaurant, was

selected for the prestigious

film festival in Busan, South

Korea, and won prizes at fes-

tivals in Singapore and

Hamburg, Germany.

“It was beyond all of our

expectations,” Chou said.

Without any financial

support from the govern-

ment, the collective has fi-

nanced its projects largely

through grants from inter-

national foundations that

support the arts. The films

remain better known out-

side the country: only “Dia-

mond Island” was released

in Cambodia, and it was

pulled from theaters after

less than two weeks.

“I didn’t have any famous

actors, the story was not a

comedy or a horror film, so it

was hard to attract the

mainstream audience,”

Chou said.

This fall, Anti-Archive

will take on its most ambi-

tious project to date: a

feature written and directed

by Neang about the experi-

ences of three friends

living in the White Building.

Chou has signed on to pro-

duce.

“The most amazing thing

about this group is how it en-

courages people to express

themselves while Cambodi-

an society doesn’t encour-

age you to express,” Neang

said. “And the other amaz-

ing thing is that we are all

friends, and we get to make

films together.”

Fresh lens on turbulent Cambodia

Young directors explore issues of identity and political change through internationally acclaimed films

By Shashank Bengali

CAMBODIANfilmmaker Kavich Neang’s first feature-length documentary won awards at festivals from

Rotterdam to Los Angeles. His inspiration was the demolition of the historic White Building in Phnom Penh.

Shashank BengaliLos Angeles Times

A STILL from the documentary “Last Night I Saw You Smiling,” filmed as the

wrecking ball loomed over a storied building slated to be replaced with condos.

Anti-Archive

DIRECTOR Davy Chou, left, with actor Sobon Nuon

on the set of the film “Diamond Island.” Chou is help-

ing to put Cambodian cinema back on the global map.

Steven Gargadennec

DANECH SAN is

among Cambodia’s first-

time female directors.

Prum Ero

‘We are all

traumatized from

the past.... It

makes you

distrustful. So as a

society we don’t

take chances.’

— Kavich Neang,

filmmaker

HONG KONG — Hong
Kong police on Monday de-
fended pulling out their
guns and firing a warning
shot during anti-govern-
ment protests over the week-
end, and lawmakers on each
side of the city’s political di-
vide said the other side
bears responsibility for the
violence.

Assistant Police Com-

missioner Mak Chin-ho said

one officer fired into the air

and six held up their revolv-

ers after protesters charged

them repeatedly with metal

poles, long sticks and road

signs on Sunday night.

“Their use of force was in-

deed necessary and reason-

able,” he said during a news

conference at police head-

quarters.

Pro-government law-

makers condemned the acts

of protesters who blocked

streets, threw gasoline

bombs and assaulted police

officers.

“You can say a lot of dif-

ferent opinions to the gov-

ernment,” said Starry Lee,

chairwoman of the Demo-

cratic Alliance for the Bet-

terment and Progress of

Hong Kong. “But violence is

different. If we can accept vi-

olence, our city will be ruin-

ed.”

Pro-democracy mem-

bers of the Legislative Coun-

cil countered that the gov-

ernment and the police need

to take responsibility, the

former for introducing the

extradition legislation that

sparked the protests and the

latter for what they say is se-

lective enforcement of the

law targeting government

opponents.

Kwok Ka-ki, a member of

the Civic Party, blamed

Hong Kong leader Carrie

Lam. He called her creation

of a platform for dialogue a

delay tactic rather than an

attempt to resolve the con-

flict.

“She is the one who

should shoulder all the re-

sponsibility, and now she is

trying to get away from all

the responsibility and shift-

ing the focus to the so-called

platform,” he said.

At a government news

conference, Matthew Che-

ung, the chief secretary for

administration, said the

protesters’ actions show a

total disregard for law and

order and called them unac-

ceptable. On Saturday, pro-

testers damaged several

“smart” lampposts installed

by the city, cutting at least

one down with a circular

electric saw. Protesters were

worried that the lampposts

could contain high-tech

cameras and facial recogni-

tion software used for sur-

veillance by Chinese author-

ities. The government in

Hong Kong said smart

lampposts collect only data

on traffic, weather and air

quality.

“We need to have dia-

logue instead of confronta-

tion,” Cheung said, accord-

ing to a simultaneous trans-

lation of his remarks. “We

need to have peace instead

of violence.”

A hard-line contingent of

protesters took over streets

on Saturday and Sunday fol-

lowing peaceful pro-democ-

racy marches. They argue

that peaceful protests are

not enough to get the gov-

ernment to respond to their

demands. Police used tear

gas to clear the streets and

arrested more than 80 peo-

ple.

The movement has five

demands including demo-

cratic elections and an inde-

pendent inquiry into what it

alleges is police violence in

breaking up demon-

strations.

Hong Kong police defend warning shot at protest

Demonstrators were

charging officers with

metal poles and sticks,

an official says.

associated press