The films of Rithy Panh center on life in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the struggle to reconcile the country's traumatic history with contemporary urban and rural experiences. Panh and his family experienced the mass evacuation of Phnom Penh in 1975, witnessing family members die from exhaustion and starvation in a remote Cambodian labour camp before fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand. Working across documentary and dramatic features, Panh's filmmaking practice explores individual and collective stories that give an emotional and material texture to the history and experiences of the Cambodian people. Panh migrated to France and in his early 20s and studied filmmaking at the prestigious Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies) in Paris. He returned to Cambodia in 1990 and established Bophana: Audio Visual Resource Centre in Phnom Penh, which aims to preserve and develop Cambodia's film, photography, and audio heritage.

Featured Works:

Site 2 aux abords des frontières (Rithy Panh, 1989); Neak Sre (Rithy Panh, 1994); Bophana: une tragédie cambodgienne (Rithy Panh, 1996); Un soir après la guerre (Rithy Panh, 1998); La Terre des âmes errantes (Rithy Panh, 1999); Les Gens d'Angkor (Rithy Panh, 2003); S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge (Rithy Panh, 2003); Les Artistes du Théâtre Brûlé (Rithy Panh, 2005); Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (Rithy Panh, 2007); Un barrage contre le Pacifique (Rithy Panh, 2008, pictured)  

Program information:

Rithy Panh