Boomtown Babylon

Boomtown Babylon is an infinite global web project of interconnected one-shot stories from slums and squatter communities in cities around the world.

We spent half March-half April in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, making the pilot. This is the diary that shares our spills and thrills. And when I say "we", I mean myself, producer Lotje Sodderland and the director, French filmmaker and all-round superbot Vincent Moon.

Made possible courtesy of charming executive producer Arnaud Dressen / Honkytonk Films (Paris).

See we fly!

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 the more important straight-faced people down the road.

Success! Tuesday we get the permission slip, but we start tomorrow without it.