April 2010
7 posts
4 tags
Day 25
This is it. The final day in Peace City II. Frenzied last-minute shootery all over town, assisted by our beloved tuk-tuk driver and disgruntled Peace City II resident, Thyneon. Super-Smey was out on his own gathering Kodak-shot self-portraits at an unprecedented velocity, for us to bring back to Paris to test the first twin-narrative experiments using HonkyTonk’s bespoke interactive editing...
5 tags
Day 24
This morning we had the pleasure of in-depth interviewing the formidable Chan Vichet, leader of the Dey Krahorm resistance movement and general force of amazingness in the land exploitation struggle, aided by his lovely interpreter Boray. On our penultimate day in Phnom Penh, it was a conversation which brought us to the core of the myriad stories of displacement, powerlessness, boredom, and...
8 tags
Day 23
Oudong. In the shadow of a magnificent temple atop a sacred hill - a revered symbol of power and prosperity - lies a community in absolute powerlessness and abject poverty: 467 families who used to squat in the disused bus station of Peace City II after the Dey Krahorm evictions last year, were taken to this remote outpost four months ago and given plots measuring 4 x 6 meters, in a dug-out mud...
6 tags
Day 22
Today was all about travelling shots following our ex-Khmer Rouge resistance fighter-turned farmer friend Nothsovann cycling through town with his little son holding on tight (screeny to follow).
We happed upon a family of seamstresses who make piecework for the factory - at a pittance of the rate earned by the factory girls.
Afternoon was spent in the dwindling food market, capturing the dozy...
5 tags
Day 21
We finally found the street where the last evictees from the aforementioned ultra-violent and heavily criticized Dey Krahorm evictions last year. Still covered in scars from where rocks hit them, or fire scorched their skin, they live in the last desolate street before Peace City’s limits, amid rows of empty barracks.
They were really eager to shoot their self-portrait stories on the baby...
9 tags
Day 20
Back with a fresh mind from a wee break, and a splendid day of full-power non-stop shootery around the market, with our little buddy Neng (13) who works mornings as the toilet attendant and just started going to the new Korean NGO-run school in the afternoons.
Her family was offered a few square meters of land in Oudong, 40km from Phnom Penh, in a mud pit in where the last of the Dey Krahorm...
Days 16 - 19
Quick diversion via Angkor Wat! What?!
March 2010
14 posts
8 tags
Days 14 & 15
Woaaah, intense days of shoot-o-rama in Peace City II. From the squat settlement in the central market square flanked by a communal trash heap, to the airy home of our chappai musician and his dancer daughter, via the garment factory girls and the hub of trade that surrounds them (food, coffee, snacks), we captured myriad observational stories with the big semi-profesh camera - and the little...
7 tags
Day Thirteen
Unlucky for some so they say, but guess we lucked out! A splendid day of static shooting, and lining up the next shots in our dust-addled minds for the stories we plan to record in the coming days.
We’re off to Peace City II tomorrow break’o’dawn for a few days of intensive, immersive expeditionry of the *deep inside* school (FYI we’ll be offline - searched in a 10-km ...
7 tags
Day Twelve
A full night and day of tropical thunderstorms made for a delightful post-Apocalyptic feel in Peace City II today.
We shot some visually spell-binding village circus segments…
…and had some of our new little friends shoot their own stories with the mini handheld Kodak Zi6’s - so awesome, the young ‘uns take to it like ducks to water and say the most insightful things...
Day Eleven
40° Celsius! That’s 104 Fahrenheit - a fine temperature to make a movie! 6am and we wound our way to Peace City 2 in the comfort of Thyneon’s steel carriage once again, shooting the long road from Phnom Penh to the satellite town in the pink-hued chaos of early morning rush-hour.
The more time we spend in PC2, the more life, spirit, activity, and hope we see behind the dry, barren...
Day Ten
Super-Smey is back on! We celebrated with a fine Cambodian coffee moment in a Jackie Chan appreciation coffeehouse on the way back to distant, dusty Peace City 2.
We met a lovely grandma called Kum Sarom who was evicted from the notorious Dei Krorhorm settlement in central Phnom Penh which was bulldozed in stages until last Feb and is currently being transformed into a billowey Disney-esque...
Day Nine
Day started with a bang - Smey had a bike crash! But luckily only sprained his knee. We took him to hospital and then packed him off home while he reigned in a replacement for the day (no-one will EVER replace YOU Smey!).
We went with Thyneon and his tuk-tuk way out to the wilderness of *Peace City 2*, where he and many other evictees from the bulldozed Bassac and Boeung Kak communities were...
5 tags
Day Eight
The girls delivered super little clips from inside their lives. We left one camera with the posse to circulate in The Building, and we’ll go swap SD cards tomorrow night to see what new treasures await…
Tomorrow morning we head to *Peace City*, the aforementioned dusty and desolate artificial neighbourhood an hour’s drive from Phnom Penh where evictees from the...
7 tags
Day Seven
In the sun-dappled loveliness of the Children of Bassac rehearsal room up on the third floor of The Building, Mr Moon kickstarted the day with a super-duper intense mini-intro to Boomtown, amid our throng of first-round of filmmakers. With Amazing Smey as co-pilot, he explained the wider context of the film (multi-authored, global web film about our new urban civilization, etc etc) and introduced...
7 tags
Day Six
We headed straight for the (not very) White Building this morning armed with 3 cameras locked and loaded. Intense and amazing again inside. We explored the pitch black corridors and stairwell light-shafts, having chats with people and asking them if they wanna make a movie.
People seem suspicious of the whole documentary thing (nosey European buffoons I think is the general perception). But...
6 tags
Day Five
8am: nobody home at the municipality.
2pm: municipality gone for lunch.
4pm: municipal chief of operations has left for Brazil!
So. Plan B it is. The Building will be our first shooting location after all. We hot-footed it to the local authority for that all-important permission mission. Frenzied explanations were met with non-enthusiasm. The straight-faced posse told us to go to the office of...
7 tags
Day Four
Today we went straight to the top x 2: first the chief monk who is the (suitably intimidating) don of Boeung Kak, to ask if we could hang out in his pagoda during our production. He said “well yes, but only on the other side where I can’t see you”! It’s an incredible spot, kind of a raised platform in a temple surrounded by cremation turrets (I was too excited to take a...
6 tags
Day Three
We met this extremely engaging tuk-tuk driver called Thyneon, who was evicted last year from one of the central squatter settlement flanking the insanity of that Vann Molyvan White Building. He and his young family were moved to a new settlement an hour’s drive outside of town - a place the government decided to call “Peace City 1” (more Peace Cities coming right up). It is a...
9 tags
Day Two
We had lemon soda with this cool budding filmmaker kid called Seila who is part of Cambodia’s first creative collective called 4K.
He took us to this crazy old cinema which closed down and got taken over by homeless squatters, recently evicted from one of the city’s inner-city communities. This French-Cambodian team of hipsters was shooting a documentary there, and the scene made us...
7 tags
Day One
Our plan was to run the Boomtown Babylon pilot in the lakeside slum of Boeung Kake, in the North of Phnom Penh. But someone set fire to it last week and the authorities were like “nu-uh” and retracted the permissions they had granted us. So Day One was all about Plan B.
Guided by super-duper on-site collaborator, our beloved soon-to-be superstar director Koam Chanrasmey, Day One...