Premier screening movie "Lost Loves" in Seattle

“LOST LOVES” USA SCEENING TOUR

SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

in Seattle

SCREENING & DISCUSSION W/ DIRECTOR CHHAY BORA

Seattle-Sihanoukville Sister City Association and Studio Revolt invites you to a public film screening of the highly-acclaimed

“Lost Loves”

(based on a true story)

Produced and directed by Chhay Bora, “Lost Loves”, retells the plight of a young mother under a genocidal regime.

The Cambodia Oscar Selection Committee has submitted Chhay Bora’s Lost Loves to the best foreign-language film category of the Academy Awards, marking the first time in 18 years that the country has sent a film to the Oscars.

$7 per person donation

Seating is limited to 150 people. Get your advance tickets today! Make a donation and present your receipt for admission.

For details visit: www.seasih.org/events.html

The FIRST and ONLY Long Beach, CA screening of ‘LOST LOVES’

Sep 6, 2012
Source: http://www.theorphanageproductions.com/the-first-and-only-long-beach-ca-screening-of-lost-loves/

This is the FIRST and ONLY Long Beach, CA screening of ‘LOST LOVES’ – Cambodia’s First *Oscar Entry in 18 Years.

Appearance/Q&A with Producer/Director: CHHAY BORA

Hosted by: praCh.ly

DATE: OCT 1st, 2012

Time: 7:00pm – 10pm

Location: ART THEATRE

2025 E. 4th Street.

Long Beach, CA. 90814

Ticket: $10 Advance $15 @ Door.

* SEATS ARE VERY LIMITED

Cambodian Food, Beer and Beverages.

Cambodia has submitted Chhay Bora’s Lost Loves to the best foreign-language film category of the Academy Awards, marking the first time in 18 years that the country has sent a film to the Oscars.The Cambodia Oscar Selection Committee (COSC) voted unanimously for the historical drama, which follows the experiences of a middle-class woman during Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.

Chhay Bora and his wife Kauv Sotheary, who are both university professors, used 15 years of personal savings to finance the film, one of the first historical dramas made by Cambodians about life during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Bora directed and produced while his wife plays the leading role. She is the surviving daughter of Leave Sila, the woman whose story forms the basis of the film.

The film was released in Cambodia on January 6 and, due to demand, screened consecutively for 42 days. It then continued to play on a weekend basis until April 2012.

“This event is historic for Cambodia’s reviving film industry,” said COSC chairman Mariam Arthur. “The only other film submitted by Cambodia for Oscar consideration was Rithy Panh’s The Rice People in 1994.”

The COSC was granted approval by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in October 2011.

TICKETS:

About the $10 advance ticket, You can purchase it at the ART THEATRE. If you are to far to purchase them I will go by the honor system and write your name on “THE LIST” in advance. If you are NOT on “THE LIST” the day of the event you will be charge $15. If you are on “THE LIST” and not show up without informing us (3) days before the event. We will personally go over to your house and cut of your water supply. * BECAUSE SEAT ARE LIMITED.

For those who want to be on our “VIP LIST”. The ticket is $40.per person. That include Food(1 dish), Beer or beverage(1 per person) of choice, you will be let in early for a personal photo/meet and greet with the filmmaker and seat of choice before general public is let in. There is ONLY 50 VIP TICKETS, so act fast.

* IF YOU WANT TO BE ON “THE LIST” or “VIP LIST”, YOU CAN EMAIL: praCh@theorphanageproductions.com

TRAILER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQbo8qMkYfs

Radio Free Asia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUP0CHmavys

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-Loves/137823462996276

http://www.screendaily.com/news/asia-pacific/cambodia-makes-first-oscars-submission-in-18-years/5045760.article?blocktitle=News&contentID=2613

Cambodia makes first Oscars submission in 18 years

28 August, 2012 | By Liz Shackleton
ScreenDaily.com

Cambodia has submitted Chhay Bora’s Lost Loves to the best foreign-language film category of the Academy Awards, marking the first time in 18 years that the country has sent a film to the Oscars.

The Cambodia Oscar Selection Committee (COSC) voted unanimously for the historical drama, which follows the experiences of a middle-class woman during Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.

Chhay Bora and his wife Kauv Sotheary, who are both university professors, used 15 years of personal savings to finance the film, one of the first historical dramas made by Cambodians about life during the Khmer Rouge regime.

As Traumatic Stories Reach Wider Audience, Some Healing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vm-Xrtw2Mg

Khmer film show GOLDEN SLUMBERS on 16 June 2012, George Street, Sydney

All,

Just a soft reminder about the film show today and tomorrow.

GOLDEN SLUMBERS, is an eye-opening and touching documentary, tracing Cambodia’s lost celluloid years. Davy Chou, the director, will partake in a question and answer session after each screening. GOLDEN SLUMBERS screens Friday 15th June 6:15pm at Event Cinemas George Street and Saturday 16th June 2:15pm at Events Cinemas George Street. Following the screening on Friday, join us at Sydney Film Festival Hub @ Lower Town Hall for our Cambodian Psych-Out Party, starting 8:30pm.

View the trailer and buy tickets here - http://tix.sff.org.au/session2.asp?sn=Golden+Slumbers

Ly Bun Yim

Virak Dara in 1974

The gentleman in the picture above is Mr. Ly Bun Yim, a leading film maker in 1960 and 1970s. He was married to Virak Dara (born 1947), one of the most beautiful and sexiest movie stars of the time. She starred in 11 feature films, all directed by Ly Bun Yim. One of the most popular movies was On Oey Srei On, (Lady On) released in 1971:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__Ka7WhnnW0

The boy in the movie is her oldest son, Ly Ratanak. The other big hit was Puthisean Neang Kong Rey in which starred as Kong Rey.

Contrary to the general belief, they were not killed during KR, although they were also trapped in Cambodia in the KR like us. Both now live in France and US respectively.

VOA interviews February 2012:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9-dbz03-XQ

Golden slumbers in Berlin:

http://goldenslumbersfilm.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/golden-slumbers-at-berlinale-forum-2012/

Kind regards

Bora Touch

Khmer Movies: The Best in Cambodian Film

Saturday, October 22, 2011
By Lee Grayson
ScreenJunkies.com

Khmer movies are films made in Cambodia, typically by Cambodian directors and starring Cambodian actors, for Cambodian speakers. Khmer films frequently have characters speaking in the native languages of Cambodia and often also add subtitles so the films can be shown in nearby countries. While some Chinese film companies produce Khmer movies, the most popular films in the Cambodian communities and in the country itself are those made totally by the homegrown members of the Khmer film industry.

"In the Shadow of Naga." Mix pirates, buried treasure and a group of monks and you have the unlikely plot in this Khmer movie. Nasom Penungkasiri directs this 2008 film about the hunt for buried treasure. Criminal elements, posing as monks, attempt to locate the long-lost booty buried decades before beneath the temple. The unlikely chain of events allows the bad guys to infiltrate the monkish doings and dig between the devotions and good works. Intira Jaroenpura and Rathcanoo Boonchuduang star in the action adventure.

"One Evening After the War." This 1998 release traces families in Cambodia after the civil war ended and the Khmer Rouge was defeated during the 1980s. The main characters, played by Narith Roeum and Chea Lyda Chan, develop a plan to escape from forced working conditions. Many war survivors were sold into work slavery to repay debts. The male character in this Khmer movie teams up with a former soldier to commit robbery to repay her debt and release the character from slavery. The film depicts the horrific human conditions in Cambodia in the 1970s and early 1980s.

"A Perfect Soldier." Aki Ra, a former child actor forced to work for the Khmer Rouge government planting land mines to thwart American soldiers, has changed his life since the war ended. Ra founded a history museum devoted to exposing the inhumane war munitions and works to promote the elimination of the land mind as a weapon of war. The film won several awards, including the official selection at the London Media Club and an official selection designation at the Vail Film Festival. "A Perfect Soldier" was released in 2010.

"High School's Love Story." This film by Kao Seiha, a young Cambodian filmmaker, follows the family drama of a high school student and his family. The family is torn when the mother leaves the children's father after he has been diagnosed as HIV positive. The theme of the 2010 Khmer movie involves the stigma of people living with HIV and AIDS in contemporary Cambodia. Khmer movie stars Keat Sovanna Leang and Chea Vannarith in the principal roles. The main focus is on how the young son deals with the situation and how he tells his girlfriend about the family tragedy.

"S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine." This 2003 documentary directed by Rithy Panh provides the historic background to the creation of the infamous detention center where the Khmer Rouge government tortured and killed citizens. The director interviews former prisoners and guards, teenagers at the time, who were forced to participate or face execution. Photographic images of the death camp show layers of skulls stacked by the thousands on shelves. Death sentences were carried out to kill prisoners who failed to follow directions, supported the enemy or were too old to live through the camp terrors. Khmer movies frequently deal with the terrors of the camps and attempt to shake the nightmare that still haunts the living over the horrors of the Khmer Rouge government.

- Lee Grayson

Filmmaker Daron Ker's story leads back to Cambodia

Daron Ker, a filmmaker born in Cambodia, in his office in San Francisco. (Robert Durell, For The Times / April 10, 2011)

His 'Rice Field of Dreams' has helped touch off a new engagement with the country that his family once fled, including hopes for a film school.

April 10, 2011

By Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times (California, USA)

Filmmaker Daron Ker's earliest childhood remembrances come from the three torturous years he spent in a malaria-ridden concentration camp in the center of Cambodia's killing fields.

His next, more pleasant memories are of watching movies projected on a tattered bedsheet in a refugee camp just across the Thai border.

"The one film that I really loved was 'Spartacus,'" Ker says enthusiastically. "It's weird, because I didn't understand anything. But it was the most powerful thing I had ever seen."

So powerful it fueled a circuitous journey to the United States, through film school and, after a nearly 30-year absence, back to his estranged homeland to direct his first full-length documentary, "Rice Field of Dreams," which has its world premiere locally this week.

It was a return both uplifting and depressing — and ultimately life-changing.

Film tracks Cambodian baseball

A poster for the film "Rice Field of Dreams," which will be shown in Long Beach on April 13

04/02/2011
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - Although filmmaker Daron Ker had only flickering memories of his homeland, he still felt a special kinship to Cambodia.

The flickering Ker best remembered were of films being shown on white bed sheets at the Thai refugee camp where he and his family lived before being relocated to California.

Those memories have endured and sustained Ker through the years as he grew up in the United States and earned a degree in film and television from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco.

When he finally got a chance to tell his first Cambodian tale on film, it was through the most American of pastimes - baseball.

Cambodian filmmaker uses fiction to teach facts about Khmer Rouge

A still from ‘Lost Loves,’ a film about the Khmer Rouge. (Courtesy of Chhay Bora)

One Cambodian filmmaker thought a popular film about the Khmer Rouge regime might reach a wider audience than the numerous documentaries and tomes that exist on the subject.

January 12, 2011

By Julie Masis, Correspondent

The Christian Science Monitor

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Chhay Bora had never been to film school, but his first movie, “Lost Loves,” made a Cambodian-American girl cry and an official from the Ministry of Culture collapse as he walked back to his seat after the screening.

The first feature film about the Khmer Rouge by a Cambodian director and actors in more than 20 years tells the story of the film director’s mother-in-law, who lost her husband, brother, father, and three children during the regime.

Mr. Bora said he made the feature for young Cambodians who don’t read foreign books or watch documentaries – and some of whom doubt the killings and starvation took place.

Cambodia, Japan film commissions come into focus

14 October, 2009
By Liz Shackleton
ScreenDaily.com

Recently-launched film commissions from two vastly different filmmaking cultures – Cambodia and Japan – were introduced at the BIFCOM locations showcase and Film Policy Plus (FPP) in Pusan this week.

Established with finance from France’s Agency for Overseas Development, the Cambodia Film Commission (CFC) is the country’s first organisation dedicated to helping overseas productions shoot in the country.

“Cambodia is now a safe place to shoot and infrastructure is improving,” said CFC chief executive Cedric Eloy who heads the commission with director Sovichea Cheap. “You have to bring in cameras but modern lighting and grips equipment is now available locally.”

Cambodia doesn’t have the financial resources to offer production incentives, but its advantages include low costs, a wide variety of locations and no import tax for foreign film productions.

The government has also dedicated funds to help improve the local filmmaking infrastructure, which was destroyed during the Khmer Rouge years, but is now stirring back into life. Overseas productions to have recently shot in the country include German director Boje Buck’s Same Same But Different and David Fincher’s The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. It also famously hosted Tomb Raider back in 2000.

Meanwhile, the Japan Film Commission (JFC) was also out in force at BIFCOM and FPP. Launched in April, the commission aims to coordinate the efforts of the more than 100 regional film commissions that have sprouted up in Japan over the past eight years.

Although the recent change of government in Japan has slowed down its roll-out, the JFC is reviewing various policies including the introduction of incentives which are lacking in Japan.

“Our newly elected prime minister commented that the new government will strengthen the relationship between Japan and other Asian countries,” said JFC chairman Ken Terawaki at FPP’s keynote speech.

“As a new member of AFCNet we have a new determination to work with you, to partner with you and to discuss the issues we need to overcome in the cultural industries.”

BIFCOM (Oct 12-14) and FPP (Oct 13-14) are organised by the Busan Film Commission (BFC) and AFCNet [Asian Film Commissions Network].

Cambodian film wins major U.S. award

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian-made film "Facing the Truth" has won a prestigious U.S. film award at the 2008 FREDDIES, a press release from Khmer Mekong Film (KMF) said Monday.

Known as "The Medical Oscars", the FREDDIES Awards competition, now in its 34th year, encourages and celebrates film excellence by attracting entries in various categories from health organizations around the world, the press release said.

"Facing the Truth", which was made by KMF, is a powerful half-hour drama about the vital importance of HIV tests for pregnant women, it said.

Set in rural Cambodia, the emotional yet positive story centers on the lives of two pregnant sisters and their husbands whose unexpected test results confound all their expectations, it added.

The film, shot in and around Phnom Penh over 10 days, is being shown in Cambodian hospitals and health centers nationwide during the next two years.

The glittering awards ceremony is due to be held in Philadelphia on Nov. 14.