Nhem En showing his photo album (Photo: AP)
Berkeley's Steven Okazaki was nominated for an Oscar. (Liz Hafalia / sfc)Friday, February 13, 2009
Hugh Hart
Excerpt from the San Francisco Chronicle
On Tuesday, a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal begins prosecuting five leaders of Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge regime. Better late than never, as far as Berkeley filmmaker Steven Okazaki is concerned. His Oscar-nominated short documentary, "The Conscience of Nhem En," takes viewers inside the walls of Tuol Sleng Prison. An estimated 17,000 Cambodian citizens entered the former school between 1975 and 1979. Eight lived to tell the tale. The rest were photographed, then executed.
"I've dug pretty deep into misery before, but 'The Conscience of Nhem En' is really the most difficult documentary I've ever made," Okazaki says.
He pitched HBO Documentary Films on the subject after reading about prison photographer Nhem En in 2007. When he was 16 years old, En took pictures of 6,000 prisoners shortly before their deaths.
"He came out of the woodwork because he thought he could make some money and wanted attention, I guess," Okazaki says.
Last year, Okazaki spent 2 1/2 weeks in Cambodia and questioned Nhem En on camera.
"I asked him numerous times, 'Did you ever just give these people a sympathetic look as if to say, "I'm sorry," and he said, 'Absolutely not. Why should I?' I found that disturbing. He appears to be a friendly, gentlemanly guy, but that's just on the surface. Underneath, he's a soulless, cold person."
Closely monitored by government security operatives, Okazaki managed to elicit frank accounts of incarceration from three survivors.
"Meeting these remarkable people became the great experience of making this film," Okazaki says. "They are all very emotionally scarred, but each of them has a certain spirit, and they were just lucky. One of the guys talks about being tortured for two weeks until someone came around asking, 'Does anyone know how to fix sewing machines?' He said, 'I do, I do!' That's how he got to live."
Okazaki is no stranger to bleak subject matter. He's made documentaries about teen drug addicts ("Black Tar Heroin"), Japanese American internment camps (the 1991 Oscar-winner "Days of Waiting") and nuclear devastation ("The Mushroom Club," nominated in 2006).
But "Conscience" took an unprecedented emotional toll during postproduction, he says.
"I'd blank out throughout the process of cutting the film and not know it; people would say to me, 'What happened? You just stopped talking for 10 seconds.' I found myself weeping at odd moments. I had diagnosable second-degree post-traumatic stress."
Next up for Okazaki: a documentary about Seattle street kids who have been thrown out of their homes by their parents. The filmmaker half jokes that he also hankers to make a movie with no redeeming social value whatsoever.
"I'm trying as hard as I can to do something totally irrelevant and stupid, so I've approached the producers of 'The Simpsons' about doing the life story of Homer Simpson."
"I've dug pretty deep into misery before, but 'The Conscience of Nhem En' is really the most difficult documentary I've ever made," Okazaki says.
He pitched HBO Documentary Films on the subject after reading about prison photographer Nhem En in 2007. When he was 16 years old, En took pictures of 6,000 prisoners shortly before their deaths.
"He came out of the woodwork because he thought he could make some money and wanted attention, I guess," Okazaki says.
Last year, Okazaki spent 2 1/2 weeks in Cambodia and questioned Nhem En on camera.
"I asked him numerous times, 'Did you ever just give these people a sympathetic look as if to say, "I'm sorry," and he said, 'Absolutely not. Why should I?' I found that disturbing. He appears to be a friendly, gentlemanly guy, but that's just on the surface. Underneath, he's a soulless, cold person."
Closely monitored by government security operatives, Okazaki managed to elicit frank accounts of incarceration from three survivors.
"Meeting these remarkable people became the great experience of making this film," Okazaki says. "They are all very emotionally scarred, but each of them has a certain spirit, and they were just lucky. One of the guys talks about being tortured for two weeks until someone came around asking, 'Does anyone know how to fix sewing machines?' He said, 'I do, I do!' That's how he got to live."
Okazaki is no stranger to bleak subject matter. He's made documentaries about teen drug addicts ("Black Tar Heroin"), Japanese American internment camps (the 1991 Oscar-winner "Days of Waiting") and nuclear devastation ("The Mushroom Club," nominated in 2006).
But "Conscience" took an unprecedented emotional toll during postproduction, he says.
"I'd blank out throughout the process of cutting the film and not know it; people would say to me, 'What happened? You just stopped talking for 10 seconds.' I found myself weeping at odd moments. I had diagnosable second-degree post-traumatic stress."
Next up for Okazaki: a documentary about Seattle street kids who have been thrown out of their homes by their parents. The filmmaker half jokes that he also hankers to make a movie with no redeeming social value whatsoever.
"I'm trying as hard as I can to do something totally irrelevant and stupid, so I've approached the producers of 'The Simpsons' about doing the life story of Homer Simpson."
1 comment:
Nhem En is a cold blooded snake in the grass, all along.
Now,Hun Sen made him a deputy district chief.He is so arrogant and proud of his chievements.
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