CTFF 2015 OFFICIAL SELECTION: ANGKOR’S CHILDREN

CAMBODIA TOWN FILM FESTIVAL 2015 OFFICIAL SELECTION: ANGKOR’S CHILDREN

ANGKOR’S CHILDREN
60 min  |  Documentary, History, News  |  24 April 2015 (USA)
DIRECTOR: Lauren Shaw
Country: USA | Cambodia
Language: English / Khmer
Official website: http://angkorschildren.com/

Against a backdrop of poverty and lingering holocaust memories, a young smot singer, a contortionist, and a leader of a grassroots protest band break from their traditional roles through unique and unexpected art forms, setting a new bar for women in Cambodia. These young women are born out of a country hardly in recovery from a genocide that killed 2 million people between 1975-1979. They are caught in a sideshow of development, or lack thereof, which can only make their individual lights that much brighter. They have broken out of the culture that views women as white cloth that can easily be soiled and never washed clean, while men are gold that shines bright no matter what. The outcome of these three young women is uncertain in terms of success, but their trajectories and stories intersect, overlap and interweave in our film as brave pioneers of a new Cambodia of the 21st century. By telling their stories now, while they are still in the making, we see Angkor’s Children as a vehicle for other young men and women to use art in gaining power within societies that so often deny freedom of expression.