A Cambodian Spring

This screening took place on Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 3:00 pmYukon Arts Centre

This stunning documentary, is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern day Cambodia. Shot over six years, the film charts the growing wave of land rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities and costs, both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in. Mothers Toul Srey Pov and Tep Vanny become land-rights activists when the Shukaku company begins illegally flooding their Boeung Kak Lake neighbourhood in the heart of the country's capital, Phnom Penh. Buddhist monk, Venerable Sovath, mobilizes to support his community’s protests by recording the events. As the film unfolds over years we witness the transformation of Venerable Sovath into a full-time video activist, as he travels the country to bear witness and record the struggles of working class Khmer standing up to government corruption. A vocation that puts him directly in the path of persecution by the Buddhist authorities. In this alarming portrait of corruption’s insidious effects on trust and truth, filmmaker Chris Kelly delivers a major blow to democracy everywhere, exposing the international complicity, passivity and hypocrisy that supports business interests and the Cambodian government. In Khmer with English subtitles.