On Sunday, May 29, nearly 50 million people in the U.S. will be able to watch Who Killed Chea Vichea?

On Sunday, May 29, nearly 50 million people in the U.S. will be able to watch Who Killed Chea Vichea?.

WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA?

http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com

From Bangor, Maine to Los Angeles, California, the story of Chea Vichea and what happened to democracy in Cambodia will air on PBS "World" stations. Other stations will continue to carry it on dates stretching into June and July, but for most of you, this is your chance!

Check the list of broadcasts at http://whokilledcheavichea.com/broadcast.html

and then call your friends, set your DVR, or just make time to watch.

It's been a long time coming!

Best regards,

Loud Mouth Films

PS: Our Facebook page is changing -- don't get left behind!

"Like" our new movie page at http://www.facebook.com/whokilledcheavichea

Documentary Probes Chea Vichea’s Murder

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
10 August 2009

Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun have each tearfully denied involvement in the murder for which they are blamed at every trial they’ve attended.

Facing 20-year prison sentences for the alleged killing of Chea Vichea, both are widely considered innocent, and in January, the Supreme Court ordered them released and has asked the Appeals Court to reexamine their case. But if it wasn’t them, then who was responsible for the death of the popular labor leader?

The question is asked but never answered in “Who Killed Chea Vichea?,” a new documentary from filmmaker Bradley Cox, screened in Rhode Island last week.

Cox’s first film, “The Plastic Killers,” examined the court case against Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, and his new film investigates the murder beyond the suspects and puts more emphasis on the victim.

“I go into a lot of detail about the case of Chea Vichea and the death and the murder of Chea Vichea, but I also expand on the theme of the movie, to use it as an example of some of these problems [of corruption and impunity] that continue to plague Cambodia,” Cox said in an interview with VOA Khmer last week.

Rights groups have welcomed the film, claiming it sheds light on the innocence of the two men and the shortage of independence within the court system.

“Evidence in the video will show better that neither of the accused were Chea Vichea’s killers in 2004,” Om Samath, a rights investigator for Licadho who has been following the case, told VOA Khmer last week. “This is a good thing that will push the Appeals Court to seriously look into the case and hopefully be able to bring the real killer for prosecution and give justice to the victims.”

Chea Vichea, a former president of the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of Cambodia, held wide influence over garment factory workers and was able to rally them in mass gatherings. He was gunned down in an assassination-style on the morning of Jan. 22, 2004, while reading a newspaper with friends at a newsstand near Wat Lanka.

Not long after, police arrested Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun. Both the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and the Appeals Court sentenced them to 20 years in prison.

“I am only telling the truth,” Sok Samoeun told VOA Khmer last week. “Once they charged me, I knew nothing of the killing. I didn’t know about the killing or who died. I knew nothing.”

Both men have been summoned to the Appeals Court later this month.

Lt. Gen. Khieu Sopheak, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, said the two are out on bail and no decision has been made in their case. He was surprised to learn the film had been released.

“Which one is the ‘Who’?” he asked, in reference to the title of the film. “Who did the film accuse?”

The film does not accuse anyone of the crime, but seeks to demonstrate that the two men accused of it could not have done it.

“What I’ve done is show conclusively who didn’t kill Chea Vichea,” Cox said. “It wasn’t Born Samnang and Sok Sameoun. I think any reasonable person can make their own conclusion. I don’t make a hard and fast conclusion as to who pulled the trigger. Personally, I don’t think we’ll ever know who really shot Chea Vichea on that day.”

The defendants, he said, do not have to prove in court who did the crime, he added, “just prove they didn’t do the killing themselves.”

Finding the killer, “that’s supposed to be the police’s job,” he said. And the more important question remains, knowing who was behind the decision to have Chea Vichea killed.

“Who Killed Chea Vichea?” includes interviews with police officers, judges, senior politicians in the ruling and opposition parties and rights and civic groups. It was filmed mainly in Cambodia, with other scenes in France, Holland, Thailand, Belgium and the US.

It will be shown on television in the US, as well as in Europe and Asia, but the filmmakers are not sure whether it will appear in Cambodia.

The recent screening, a little more than a week ahead of the Aug. 17 court day for Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, was a coincidence, Cox said, and was unlikely to influence the court.

If the judge evaluates the case on its merits, “he would have to release Born Samnang and Sok Samoeun, because they are innocent,” Cox said. If there is political pressure, the two may not be released.

“Either way I don’t think my movie will have an effect on the judge,” he said.

Meanwhile, the biggest question remains unanswered.

“Chea Vichea’s killer is still far away,” said his brother, Chea Mony, who now heads the Free Trade Union. “We still don’t have a clue. We are still waiting for justice, and we have received not a single piece out of million.”

More information on the film, including a preview, can be found at
www.whokilledcheavichea.com

Public Screening of Who Killed Chea Vichea?

NEWS RELEASE
July 31, 2009

PUBLIC SCREENING OF WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA?
AT RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Loud Mouth Films is proud to present the first U.S. festival screening of Who Killed Chea Vichea? in Providence, Rhode Island.

Who Killed Chea Vichea? will be screened at 5:20 PM on Friday, Aug 7, at the Columbus Theatre Arts Center, 270 Broadway, Providence, along with the short films In Their Boots: Broken Promise by Abe Greenwald, and Open Air by Shira-Lee Shalit.

Filmed over five years in Cambodia, Who Killed Chea Vichea? is a one-hour documentary thriller about the assassination of Cambodia's top labor leader and the police plot to frame two innocent men. Cambodia is one of the world's largest garment producers and exports some $2 billion worth of garments to the U.S. each year.

On a sunny morning in 2004, two men on a motorbike pulled up at a Phnom Penh newsstand. One of them stepped off, walked over to Chea Vichea, the president of the garment workers union, and calmly shot him in the head and in the heart. Who Killed Chea Vichea? takes us from the dusty streets and slums of Phnom Penh to remote villages, through courtrooms, brothels, factories and gambling dens. It is an unprecedented film about the inner workings of one of the world's most corrupt states.

Produced by Providence native Rich Garella and directed by Bradley Cox, the film was named one of Amnesty International's top ten "Movies That Matter." It is a co-production of Independent Television Services and WGBH Boston.

"There's a large Cambodian community in Providence, and we're going to do our best to reach out to them," Garella said. The festival has already agreed to donate a block of tickets to Providence organization of Cambodian youth.

Contact:

Loud Mouth Films: info@loudmouthfilms.net

Festival and ticket info:

RI International Film Festival: http://riff.bside.com/2009/films/whokilledcheavichea_riff2009

Film website:

Who Killed Chea Vichea? official site: http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com

On FaceBook:

Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76083065273
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100857517875

BACKGROUND AND FILM SYNOPSIS

By 2004, Cambodia was becoming one of the world's largest garment exporters. Foreign-owned factories employed hundreds of thousands of desperate young women who flooded in from the countryside. The country quickly became dependent on garment exports. Its biggest customer was, and is, the United States.

Vichea, the president of Cambodia's free trade union, slept on a straw mat in the union office and didn't collect a salary. Despite beatings and death threats, he rallied the workers as they fought for wage increases, improved working conditions and an end to forced overtime, and often won. He gained an international reputation in the labor movement, and Cambodia gained a reputation as a model country for worker's rights.

But inside Cambodia, the lesson of the Khmer Rouge regime, and of the regimes before and after it, is well known. Ally oneself with power--or face the consequences.

WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? is about the killing of one man and the slow silencing of an entire nation. It is about how a small elite keeps an iron grip on power through the use of its police, its army, its manipulation of the courts and its most effective tool: fear. And it is about how hope survives against incredible odds.
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Loud Mouth Films
Philadelphia/Bangkok
http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com