August 5, 2017

CTFF 2017 Official Selection: A CAMBODIAN SPRING

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SUNDAY, SEPT. 17th 2017 – ART THEATRE LONG BEACH: 2025 E. 4th Street. Long Beach, CA. 90814
11AM-2PM

A CAMBODIAN SPRING
Director: Chris Kelly
Cambodia, England / Documentary Feature / Khmer with English subtitles / 121 mins / West Coast Premiere

Synopsis: A Cambodian Spring 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 – both political and personal of fighting for what you believe in. Q & A with Venerable Loun Sovath and director Chris Kelly after the screening.

Purchase Tickets: http://ctff2017.whindo.com

Venerable Loun Sovath is a Cambodian Buddhist monk and human rights activist. Since 2009, he has been involved in advocacy for the victims of land grabbing and forced evictions, inspired by events in his home commune of Chi Kraeng in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province. He has joined many high profile protests staged by residents of Chi Kraeng commune, Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak Lake and Prey Lang Forest among others. Sangha leaders have admonished him for these activities. This culminated in a directive issued by Supreme Patriarch Venerable Ngon Net banning him from all pagodas in the country. Known by some as the “multimedia monk” he makes extensive use of technology in support of his advocacy efforts.

Chris Kelly is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the founder of Little Ease Films. He has spent the last nine years making his first feature documentary ‘A Cambodian Spring’ which recently won the Special Jury Prize for International Feature Documentary at Hot Docs 2017. He is a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper and in 2014 produced an award-winning undercover investigation into slavery in the Thai fishing industry. His work has taken him as far afield as South Sudan, Burma, the Philippines, Laos and Thailand. He is currently developing an animated feature film about slavery in the Thai fishing industry, a feature documentary about a young Irish man who went to fight Assad in Syria and a Virtual Reality computer game about slavery and migration.