Discoveries from Comoros World Cinema

An educational short film on the discrimination and dignity of transgender people in Cambodia.

A father's heart is as big as the whole world, it is said. A disabled cycle trishaw driver who has lost a leg is lovingly raising his two children alone as their mother ran away. The little money he earns on the dirty streets of the pulsating city is just enough to survive. When the little son fell ill and had to go to the hospital, the desperate father could not afford the money for medical treatment. He now has to take on other jobs, collect rubbish from the street or donate blood. Meanwhile, a young, committed female doctor is taking care of the little boy, whose father, in turn, cannot understand that she is doing this "man's job". Based on a true story!

Pheakdey and her mother escape from the war area to live in Phnom Penh. They have no money, no job, no shelter, and no food. Her mother is sick and blinded by the war. Out of pity, a woman suggests that they live with her. She provides them with everything they need. But the woman is actually ill-intentioned and wants to sell Pheakdey to millionaires.

Kantha, a classical Khmer ballet dancer, is in love with Phalla, a young air force pilot, but is forced to marry a powerful general.

Musical including many classic songs

The goddess Tep Sodachan falls in love with the peasant Vesna. Their love is threatened by a landlord and later, the king of the sky.

After her father is killed in a car accident and her mother falls ill, Lyka must find a job to feed and care for her family, while still yearning to attend school miles away from home.

A hunting party spending a night in a forest are suddenly whisked away into a magical reality.

Phnom Penh-based dancer Prumsodm Ok—a Cambodian-American and pioneer of the first Cambodian gay dance company Prumsodun Ok & NATYARASA—demonstrates the meticulous form of Khmer dance. This short draws a parallel between the nature of film as a time machine and the dancing human body as both fundamentally dynamic and temporal. Within the frame beckons a prayer for healing and empowerment in the face of violence and conflict.

After a series of deadly crocodile attacks, a farmer decides to become a crocodile hunter.

Chantrea is banished from home by her sons when they discover she has HIV. She accepts her exile, even though supporting her family was the reason she worked as a prostitute.

Inav, prince of Daha, refuses an arranged marriage with Bosba, princess of Aden. Things change when another king asks for Bosba's hand in marriage, threatening war if she refuses.

A group of young developers hope to renovate an old house, only to find that it was formerly home to a traditional Thai dancing school, and the spirits of the dancers have yet to leave.

A young boy lives in fear after discovering his mother is Arp, a mythical spirit consisting of nothing but a head and bloody entrails.

In Banteay Meanchey province, Mom Beng, Vai Sok and their daughter Chanra are homeless and have to move their temporary shelter as they get evicted from the land where they settled. They use their cart both to move their belongings and to offer delivery services. Mom would like to go and work in Thailand but Vai feels happy as it is, with his family around.

Princess Keth Soriyong is the daughter of a giant king. Sovannahong first sees the princess as an apparition in a rose. He becomes so love-sick that he convinces a fortune teller to turn him into a magical golden swan that takes him to the kingdom of Soriyong

A talented novice monk named Tum (Kong Som Eun) falls in love with Teav (Vichara Dany), a very beautiful young lady. Teav give offerings to Tum and he proudly accepts the offers, despite Cambodian tradition forbidding a young female from engaging in any close activity with a monk (so giving offerings is not allowed). As the story progress, the relationship of Tum and Teav deepens. Teav's mother is unaware of the relationship between the monk she respects and her 16-year-old daughter. No, Teav's friendly assistant, helps conceal the relationship of Tum and Teav from Teav's mother. As soon as Teav's mother finds out that Tum is in love with her daughter, she forbids her daughter from ever seeing him again. The story ends in a dramatic tragedy when Tum is killed and Teav commits suicide.

Casablanca! A group of young Comorians trapped in despair come together. They plan joint projects and dream of a bright future for their country. However, this common will is threatened by attempts of seduction of which Moina Hindru, the initiator of the movement, is the object. All the boys love him. Will she choose love or fight for a better tomorrow?

Thavory and her big sister fall in love with the same man. Thavory marries him but falls into a dirty plot set up by her sister to drive her away.

After studying magic with a hermit, Preah Thinavong returns to his palace. On the way home, he transformed himself into a leper in order to incite the pity of Princess Neang Pov, the daughter of the king of Borey Champa. The princess pitied the leper so much that she gave him her scarf. Her older sisters assumed that she had a lover and convinced her father to dismiss her from the palace…

A nurse fights to expose a doctor who is trying to cover up his own deadly mistakes.

As the sun sets over the ocean, Estelle risks everything to send a secret message to the man she truly loves.

During 1993 when UN forces come to Cambodia during a time of political upheaval and civil war, two Resistance leaders fall in love with the same girl.

"As abstract shapes come into focus, dim memories surface. With Blind Body, Allison Chhorn offers an impressionistic portrait of her grandmother Kim Nay, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge. Partially blind, Kim spends her days in a mostly sonic and textural world, in which the sound of rain, the voices of Khmer radio, and distant birdsong summon the sensations of a lost homeland." - New York Film Festival / Film at Lincoln Center

Bngvel is the real-life story of Phally, a Cambodian man struggling against the odds to be a good husband and father. Never being able to provide enough for his card-playing wife, he heads to the big city in search of better employment opportunities, only to find the more he earns, the more he spends. Numbing out with beer and girls, he comes to a point of crisis that shakes him up, and he becomes determined to make amends.

In a suburb of Phnom Penh, where Cambodia’s textile industry is flourishing, Ty Sophanith lives with his wife and his five years old son. The young workers, former peasant from the countryside of Kampong Chhnang, were hired by the factory, supplier to the well-known brands in the West, but the couple lives in starvation wage. Sophanith was wounded by the police bullets during a demonstration for their better working conditions, The Cambodian workers’ demonstration is getting violent.

Sonita a 16-year-old girl chooses to be a modern K-pop dancer to follow her dream. Her traditional Khmer father is strongly against her decision and he wants his only child to inherit the Cambodian Traditional Dance when he’s gone.

It is no accident that the Mekong River, symbolized by the Naga, is a source of happiness and fertility in Cambodia. The numerous hydro-electrical dam projects, mostly on its lower main stream, pose big risks for the riparian countries fish resources. This documentary reviews the situation of these projects and provides testimonies of fishermen and scientific observers.

One of Vichara Dany's first films.

After the death of her mother, Nary decides to live her life independently, dressing and acting as a man in order to work at a taxi company, but Kosal soon finds out.

Rath, a Cambodian-American woman, returns to Cambodia in order to meet her favorite Khmer singer-actress, Thida after a series of long-distance telephone conversations. With strong help and support, Thida becomes godsister to Rath, who is allowed to live with Thida and her family in Cambodia. The two become inseparable and constantly spend time with each other. Unbeknownst to Thida, Rath has romantic feelings for her.

"Ghost Mountain" is the story of Bunseng Taing, a Cambodian refugee who made his way to Connecticut in 1980 after surviving both the Killing Fields and a second horror never before documented. He was among 45,000 refugees who managed to escape to what they believed was safety in Thailand, only to be forced back over the Cambodian border in an area heavily infested with landmines.

Cambodian slasher movie.

The indigenous Chong people, who live in the last great forest of Cambodia in the Areng Valley of the southwestern Koh Kong province, intuit the borders of their land through a fundamentally embodied experience based on ancestral and oral histories. A recurrent element in such histories is the presence of spiritual animals that inhabit the forest. The Areng Valley is under continuous environmental and geo-political threat, marking the potential end of the Chong's way of life. Together with a team that includes the dancer and choreographer Nget Rady, Khvay Samnang has embedded himself in the community, working with the Chong people to learn how the politics of land and the sense of belonging are increasingly at odds with each other.

When he plays his guitar, the beautiful neighbour girl comes to listen.

The refugee camp Khao-I-Dang on the border of Cambodia and Thailand was known as the “hill of death.” Hundreds of thousands of people fleeing famine or certain death under the Khmer Rouge arrived there exhausted. Among them were a mother and her baby daughter, who later found a home in France. Fourty years later, the daughter—filmmaker Neary Adeline Hay—follows the trail back in a highly personal, elegantly filmed journey through their past.

Phom Penh, Cambodia, nowadays. Sony, a 10-year-old Cambodian kid working at a discharge, is thrown out of home by his father. Left on his own, he is fostered by an association that is allowing him to go to school and to discover a new way of living. Sony will quickly settle, but on the day of a school outing, he makes an unexpected discovery.

A day in a children’s camp in a rural area during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. Five young boys decide to have a ‘party’ with rice they have ‘stolen’ from the camp store, grain by grain day by day. In three months the rice collected is the size of a fist and the boys can’t withstand waiting any longer. They cook the rice at the lakeside, taking care not to be seen. But when they see the cooked rice they are mesmerised by the scent and the taste and don’t notice that they are spotted by a Khmer Rouge cadet. As a consequence the camp Commander sends them to be ‘re-educated’ (killed) as an example to the rest of the boys.

Ride was chosen in the finalists among 16 out of 115 others short films in the SEA Tropfest 2015. The story set in the countryside of Cambodia. Two inseparable young sisters have to come to terms with living apart for the first time. But before they go their separate ways, there’s just one last chance for the ride of their lives.

Twin brothers are born on the same day that a murder occurs. The twins separate from each other; one is adopted into a rich family while the other remains poor. Several years pass when the poor twin begins to fall in love with a rich man's daughter named Pkah Thgall Meas. The couple faces many adversities from a cruel wealthy man. It is up to the rich twin to save the life of his poor twin brother and his love Pkah Thgall Meas.

Om Phea, a grandmother with fragile health, lives in Banteay Meanchey province, and daily, fishing snails, crabs and small fish and gathering morning glory she feeds her two grandchildren abandoned by their mother. Pressured by creditors, she does not give up and fights to send them to school.

Rammayee, a Jarai woman, is a native of Lai village, Khnol commune, Oyadav district, Ratanakiri province. She orphaned when she was 2 years old and then lived with her aunt and aggressive uncle. As she did not want to burden her aunt any longer, she decided to get married at the age of 15 years. Unfortunately, she suffered from health problems during pregnancy. Her first-born had been underweight then and had suffered from constipation. Rammayee and her husband decided to borrow money for their child´s surgery in Phnom Penh. Despite of hard life in the village, they both work hard to raise their child. They hope that their child will not follow them, but instead of getting married early will go to school and have a better life.

This film is about Ravi Chor Vy, an ambitious Kreung ethnic teacher in Krala Village, Ratanakiri, who fights to preserve the Kreung culture for the improvement of the community. Trying to pass on the Kreung language to the next generation, she does not stop teaching at school even during pregnancy and afterwards carrying her baby in arm. But as children do not understand the value of education, they resist learning and even after going school for years cannot read nor write properly. However, Chor Vy has not given up her teaching efforts and was therefore promoted by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

Cambodian slasher movie.

When he plays his guitar, the beautiful neighbour girl comes to listen.

It is no accident that the Mekong River, symbolized by the Naga, is a source of happiness and fertility in Cambodia. The numerous hydro-electrical dam projects, mostly on its lower main stream, pose big risks for the riparian countries fish resources. This documentary reviews the situation of these projects and provides testimonies of fishermen and scientific observers.

In Ratanakiri, Broty Ranchong weaves for a living and lives with her youngest daughter, Sanoy, who works on a farm. One day, Sanoy was raped on her way to work and has a baby girl. Her brother and her sister told her to sell her, but, instead, she decided to work even harder so that her daughter could go to school.

Mlek Phon, a 22-year-old woman of Pnong ethnic origin, lives in Puja village, Mondulkiri province. Her father is a farmer while her mother is a housewife and a winemaker. She is the eldest of four children. Since her parents are getting weaker and older, Pun quit school to help them. She works hard in the fields and brings her siblings to school. The eldest brother decided to follow her and quit school to support the family. At the same time, Phon is very worried about her second brother because instead of listening to her and doing homework, he prefers hanging out with friends and playing games. She puts all her hope in her youngest sister who should graduate and become a doctor or a police officer.

Nghas Hourng was married at 16, she had four children - one of them died. Divorced from her husband who beat her and his children, she lives completely destitute in Ratanakiri province with her three daughters. One of whom is sick but Nghas does not have enough money to take her to the health center. Between two harvests, she tries to survive hunting crickets and fishing snails, crabs and small fish.

"At First They Don't Believe" documents the stories and experiences of two women who survived the regime, Sieng Chantei and Leay Kimchhean, as they navigate and confront these challenges. The film highlights the different ways that they have made their experiences of the regime meaningful. Building on the work of Changing the Story in Cambodia, and by learning from and with the innovative work of Cambodian civil society organisations, the film illustrates the importance of young people learning about and acknowledging the stories of survivors.

A lesbian daughter in rural Cambodia was forced to marry a man. But she never lost faith in true identity; she rose and failed, then she stood up and fought again for the freedom to become her own self.