LAND/WATER/RAIN: July 2011

22 July 2011

HAITI & CAMBODIA

I recently had the incredible fortune to visit Haiti and connect with the journalists there. By invitation of Kathie Klarreich and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), I had a unique opportunity to share my experiences and stories as a lawyer, filmmaker, and storyteller with Haitian journalists also interested in investigating, revealing, and recounting the stories in their own country undergoing massive reconstruction since the 2010 earthquake.

The original purpose of my trip was to screen INSIDE JOB to an audience of journalists and to share my experiences working as a researcher on the film. The journalists wanted to learn about how I organized my research and the challenges I faced working on the film. However, the intention changed as I began to talk to the journalists about my life and my experiences working in Mozambique, Iraq, and Cambodia. Our discussions began to slowly build around the similarities between these countries and Haiti, especially in Iraq and Cambodia.

At the height of reconstruction and during the time I was working as a legal consultant in Iraq, the US government poured $12 billion a month into Iraq. With all the money being spent, Iraqis still had no access to water or electricity. In fact, most professional Iraqis became unemployed as private contractors replaced them. Threatened and endangered, many of them fled the country.

A decade after my family fled Cambodia, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) took over the administration of Cambodia and organized and ran the country’s first general election since the Khmer Rouge fell from power. During this time, the number of prostitutes in the State of Cambodia rose from about 6,000 in 1991, to over 20,000 after the arrival of UNTAC personnel in 1992. By 1995 there were between 50,000 and 90,000 Cambodians affected by AIDS according to a WHO estimate. Now, thirty years into reconstruction, there are over 2,000 associations and NGOs in Cambodia.

The parallels between Haiti and Cambodia and Iraq was striking. Even a year after the earthquake and four billion dollars pumped into reconstruction, very few homes have been built and many people are still living without electricity or running water in run-down tent cities that have bloomed after the wake of the earthquake. Port-au-Prince is pitch dark after the sun goes down. NGOs are taking care of social services the Haitian government should be providing. And international aid workers have introduced cholera, as opposed to HIV, into the country.

It was incredibly moving meeting with the Haitian journalists and students and sharing our stories. The journalists became encouraged to not only go out there and investigate and monitor their government and the thousands of NGOs working in Haiti, but also write stories that will help inspire the people of Haiti to rebuild their country as well as their own national identity. This is the power of journalism, of documentary filmmaking, and of telling stories – to expose and reveal, but to also help inspire and reconstruct a new perception and way of looking at the world, each other, and ourselves.

I look forward to returning to Haiti again, this time to screen LAND/WATER/RAIN and to share more stories and experiences that will hopefully shed light on other issues that may also be affecting the country.

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.