By Robert Carmichael Oct 21, 2009, 4:00 GMT
Phnom Penh - At 26, Davy Chou is too young to have first-hand experience of the golden age of Cambodian filmmaking, which flourished in the 1960s and early '70s.
But the curator of a nine-day event celebrating this neglected part of Cambodia's cultural history has a powerful personal link: his grandfather who disappeared in Cambodia in 1969 was one of the leading film producers of the time.
The '60s saw the start of a 15-year period when the local industry generated hundreds of films. Then tragedy intruded in the form of the Khmer Rouge, and Cambodia's film industry was destroyed in 1975.
'It's a very unique and very sad story,' Davy Chou said of the period being marked in the exhibition, Golden Reawakening - '60s Cambodian Film Festival and Exhibition, which began in Phnom Penh Saturday and runs through October 25.
The festival, the first of its kind in the country, is screening 11 films from the period and also exhibiting film posters, photographs and biographies of the leading stars of the day at the Chinese House, a restored colonial building near Phnom Penh's port.
Former king Norodom Sihanouk was a prolific filmmaker and has provided one of his works. Davy Chou said that for most of the 1950s, Norodom Sihanouk was the sole filmmaker in Cambodia, but that changed around 1960.
'Then suddenly during 15 years, there was a boom in the film industry, and they produced - and it's difficult to say an exact number and I think that we will never know - at least 350 films, maybe more than 400 films,' he said.
'Today, because of the Khmer Rouge regime, we can find 33 films, so it's less than 10 per cent,' he said.
The destruction wrought by the Khmer Rouge still hangs over most aspects of Cambodia. The ultra-Maoist regime's efforts to destroy the country's rich cultural heritage make its baleful influence hard to escape at the festival.
Photographs portray a young, vibrant filmmaking scene with confident actors and actresses in '60s garb globetrotting to Singapore and France, but almost none of the stars from that time are alive. Davy Chou said most died during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge era, when up to 2 million people, or up to 30 per cent of the population, are thought to have died from execution, starvation and overwork.
'If we count the top 10, we can just find two actresses today,' he said, mentioning Dy Saveth, who continues to act, and Virak Dara, who lives in France.
He said other stars such as Kong Sam Oeun, Vichara Dany, Chea Yuthorn and Som Van Sok Dany died under the Khmer Rouge regime.
Dy Saveth was the doyenne of Cambodian actresses in the 1960s. The star of more than 100 films, she was a guest of honour on the exhibition's opening night. As the monsoon rain lashed down outside, she told the German Press Agency dpa of her mixed emotions.
'When I see the photographs, it is just like the old times,' she said. 'It's almost 30 years, but it seems like yesterday. Sadly, some of my colleagues who acted with me during those years died under the Pol Pot regime. I am one actress who is lucky out of hundreds of actors and actresses.'
Later, during a brief and emotional speech at the festival, Dy Saveth, who survived because she fled to Thailand shortly before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, thanked the organizing committee. Most of its three dozen members are students, and none is older than 27. She said it moved her deeply that they came together in a labour of love to try to rebuild the country's film history.
'I would not have thought that the younger generation would come up with an idea like this,' she told attendees. 'When I saw that, it surprised me and made me want to cry.'
One of those attending is Professor Adam Knee, the head of cinema studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. He is interested in developing an overview of South-East Asian film history.
'In the case of Cambodia, a lot of the history and continuity has been lost, and that's why it is so important that this group of students is trying to get together the people who are still around who have information,' he said.
The lack of a formal history means there are huge gaps to be filled. He said it is mainly luck that anything at all is left.
'Most of it is gone - there are really just a handful of prints, some of which are being shown in this festival,' he said.
Along with the organizers, Knee said he was encouraged at the high turnout and said it speaks to the level of interest in the period.
'Here's something that was lost, and there is now finally an opportunity to try and retrieve that,' he said. 'I think it's something that's symbolic of more than an interest in film history. Really, it's symbolic of trying to retrieve a lost time in Khmer history.'
Could the event spark a regeneration of the golden age of filmmaking? Probably not, Knee said. Films are still being made in Cambodia, but the possibility of a return to the output of the '60s is low. After a brief surge in the 1990s, filmmaking has dropped off again.
'There's not the profit to be made and not the audience, and the theatres have closed down,' he said.
Curator Davy Chou said the exhibition is deliberately looking back rather than forward and what began as a personal story about his grandfather has evolved into something much larger.
'I think about my grandfather, of course, but these last three months working with so many young people about all these stories of so many people who died and so many people who were so important at the time, it overpowers the personal story,' he said.
For him the exhibition's purpose is twofold: 'For the young people to know and to discover, and for the older generation, to bring back a little about this happy time for them.'
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