LAND/WATER/RAIN: Factory and Rice

12 September 2011

Factory and Rice

In addition to the two stories in Ratannakiri and Kampong Chnnang, we have also been following the life of Khieu, a factory worker living in Veng Sreng Road, famous for its row of factories that stretch for miles along the highway, and located in the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Khieu, is the eldest of the three sisters working at a shoe factory. The family lives in a tiny room, not much larger than a small walk-in closet. The family is from Svay Rieng, a province two hours away from the capital. They came to Phnom Penh six years ago to work in a shoe factory. Like many others in Cambodia, this family is struggling to cope with low wages and the rise in the cost of living in an urban environment as well as trying to balance the need to make money in the city with the need to care for their family and their home in the countryside.

Like most of the factory girls, Khieu only makes 60 USD a month or 100 USD, including overtime. This is barely enough for Khieu to survive in the city, send money back home, or pay off the family’s mounting debts. In addition to her duty of providing regular income for her family, Khieu is also expected to return home to help during the planting and harvest season. This makes it difficult for Khieu and many factory girls to commit to their work and therefore to save enough money to finally escape factory life and return home. Khieu and many of the factory girls are therefore often forced to live their lives in between - in between the city and the country and between the factory and rice.

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ABOUT THE FILM

In Cambodia, the river of life flows in a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth, of creation and destruction, of drought and rain, of pain and prosperity. Moving south along the Mekong, north up the Tonle Sap and south again, the river stretch endlessly out into the unknown sea, yet always returns to the heart of the country, throbbing in its silence and cooling in its offerings of fish and plenty.

But as Cambodia moves forward, partially constructed skyscrapers looming in the horizon, and the fever to develop and keep pace with its competitors demanding increasing power and energy, this natural cycle of Cambodian life threatens to be disturbed.

Traversing downstream along the Mekong River and then upstream again to the Tonle Sap River, LAND/WATER/RAIN will chart the course of Cambodia’s rapid drive towards development and prosperity in the region and the inescapable consequences of this growth.

Through intimate stories of the indigenous and disappearing people living in the Northeastern jungles of Cambodia, of fishermen struggling to survive along the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, and young women fleeing their homes to work in garment factories, LAND/WATER/RAIN will trace a remarkable, unprecedented, and connected story of a country faced with the difficulties of balancing the perpetual cycle of creation and destruction.

THE FILM CREW

KALYANEE MAM (Director, Producer, & Director of Photography) As a filmmaker and lawyer, Kalyanee seeks to engage her experiences in human rights and the law to create documentaries that are both captivating and inspiring. Kalyanee recently served as Director of Photography and Associate Producer for INSIDE JOB, a film by Charles Ferguson and a Sony Pictures Classics release about the global financial crisis, which was chosen as an Official Selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, the 2010 Telluride Film Festival, the 2010 New York Film Festival, and which won the 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary. She is also Director and Producer of Between Earth & Sky, a short documentary film that follows the hopes and struggles of four young Iraqi refugees living in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. It is the First Place Winner for Best Directing-Short Documentary at the Los Angeles International Film Festival, a recipient of a prize for Artistic Merit from the Montana CINE International Film Festival and is an official selection at the St. Louis International Film Festival. As a lawyer, Kalyanee has also worked on human rights issues in various countries including Cambodia, China, South Africa, Mozambique, and Iraq. Kalyanee's work has included assisting refugees in South Africa, documenting the atrocities committed against women during the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia, and working as a lawyer in Iraq. She is currently serving on the Advisory Board of the Yale Visual Law Project. Kalyanee and her family escaped war-torn Cambodia in 1979 and eventually fled to the United States as refugees in 1981. She is a graduate of Yale University and UCLA Law School.

RATANAK LENG (Producer, Camera, Researcher), is a full-time staff member and Team Leader of the Film Project at DC-Cam. He has produced two documentary films: Victim Participation through filing complaints to the ECCC and Living Documents. Ratanak has served as Assistant Producer for the documentary film, Behind the Wall of S-21: Oral History from Toul Sleng Prison, about two former prisoners and a former guard of the notorious political prison S-21 during the Khmer Rouge regime. Ratanak also acted as Research Assistant for The Conscience of Nhem En, by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki (Days of Waiting, 1990), which will air on HBO in 2009. The film takes an intimate look at the country 30 years after the end of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror and was recently shortlisted for an Academy for best short documentary film. Ratanak has also served as Research Assistant to Cristiane Amanpour’s latest series on CNN, "Scream Bloody Murder" on genocide in Cambodia, Iraq, and Rwanda. Ratanak received a Bachelor Degree of Arts in Media Management from the Royal University of Phnom Penh, where he produced Food Is God, a documentary film describing the mass starvation of Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge regime. He also has a Bachelor of Education in English from Norton University in Phnom Penh.

YOUK CHHANG (Executive Producer) has served as Director for the DC-Cam since its inception in January 1995. Under his direct guidance, DC-Cam grew from a staff of three to a staff of 46 employees and 4 volunteers, all of whom are Cambodian. He received the Truman-Reagan Freedom Award from The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on November 14, 2000 in Washington, D.C., USA. In 2007, Youk Chhang was named as one of the “TIME 100” and listed in TIME Magazine’s “60 Years of Asian Heroes,” in 2006. Youk has also served as Director/Producer for the film, The Khmer Rouge Rice Fields: The Story of Rape Survivor Tang Kim, which has been screened in Thailand, the Brussels Film Festival, the Prix Bruno Mersch Film Festival, and the Museum of Modern Art and Asian Cultural Council in New York. It was also nominated as a finalist at the 2005 US ASEAN Film, Video and Photography Festival. Earnings from DVD productions of the film are being used to support the education of Taing Kim’s children.

DOUG KASS (Film Consultant), Doug Kass received his Masters Degree from U.S.C. Film and Television School in Los Angeles. His narrative and documentary films have garnered awards at film festivals around the world, and have appeared on major television networks including BBC, SHOWTIME, VH1, and PBS. He began his affiliation with the Documentation Center of Cambodia while operating camera for the documentary film Rain Falls From Earth, about survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime living in the United States. He helped establish and train DC-CAM’s documentary film team in 2004, and has since served as an advisor and mentor. He directed the DC-CAM film production, Behind the Walls of S-21 in 2007. He has also served as an advisor for the multi-media section of the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor website, which documents the proceedings of the U.N. backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He is an adjunct professor at Elon University in the Communications Department.

12 September 2011

Factory and Rice

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