GETSEA (Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asia) is teaming up with the Phnom Penh-based Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center to screen four short films by Cambodian filmmakers. Each of the four films is created by and focuses on a different ethnic group in Cambodia—the Khmer, Jarai, Karvet, and Bunong. The four films come together under the theme of “Healing, Memory & Care” and coincide with the International Decade of Indigenous Languages campaign. 

The four films curated for the event are: 

• Dull Trail (Bunong with English subtitles)

  Directed by Raksa Khon, Mono Peou, Rickydavid Choey, 2020, 11mn, Bunong and Khmer version with English subtitles

  Blind in one eye and traumatized from years of war and American bombs, Mae Neng the elephant learns to accept the love of her kind caretaker Da Chroed in Mondulkiri province.

• Alive Skin (Khmer with English subtitles)  

  Directed by Veasna OEM, Vantha RAT, 2023, Khmer version with English Subtitles

  “Alive Skin,” tells the story of a young man named Heng AN. He is an artist who makes puppets for Khmer shadow plays out of leather. This art form is almost non-existent nowadays, but to preserve it he wants to show younger generations his craftmanship. Therefore, he explains how he makes traditional leather puppets, how to use them to perform shadow plays, and what his reasons for creating this art are.

• Trung (Karvet with English subtitles)

  Directed by Khamnhei HEA, 2022, 17:11min, Karvet Indigenous language with English subtitles.

  Noum is the name of a traditional fishing trap used during the rainy season by Karvet Indigenous People since ancient times. The name has been used for a long time, but in 2021 Ban Pas decided to call the trap Keb (which means ‘Shoes’ in the Indigenous language) instead. He has been making this kind of fishing trap since he was 12 years old. Today, he is 39 years old and lives with his wife and four children in a cashew plantation. In the past, Ban Pas could weave three or four fishing traps each day, today he only manages to make one to two. “In the future, I want to teach my children how to weave.”, he says.

• My Wish (Jarai with English subtitles)

  Directed by KASOL Sinoun, 2021, Jarai with English subtitles.

  Ms. Rochom Eth, aged 39, of Jarai indigenous ethnicity, lives in Leurhon village, Ke Chong commune, Borkeo district in Ratanakiri province. Today, she is a farmer and hired labourer to support her family and her children’s education. She owns no farmland, lives in poverty, and suffers domestic violence from her husband and her drug-addicted son. For more than 10 years she has been working alone; her husband cares about nothing and her son is in prison due to drug usage and trying to burn their home. She cannot afford to take her son to the Drug Addiction Correctional Centre.