Henry Luce Foundation gifts $500K to budding Cambodian filmmakers
THE Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center has received a $500,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to implement a project entitled “Training Tomorrow’s Film Directors and Promoting Academic and Cultural Exchange through Cambodian Filmmaking.”
The three-year project aims to build the skills of young Cambodians to become future filmmakers and support them in producing films on topics that interest them. It will also ensure they receive encouragement from Cambodian and American institutions.
The programme provides a full year scholarship to 36 young Cambodians and indigenous peoples from different communities in Cambodia for documentary production, both in theory and practice. Trainees will study the entire process of documentary film production (pre-production, production, and post-production) so that they can produce short films that cover complex issues, including political, economic, and social issues that affect other communities in Cambodia.
Tieng Piseth, head of administration and coordination at the Bophana Center, said that the recruitment of students was funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and is scheduled to run from July 2022 to June 2025.
“The project provides scholarships to 12 students per year to train in documentary and multimedia production. The first students were enrolled in July will study until August next year. The second intake will begin in September 2023,
and the third in 2024,” he said.
To qualify for admission, students must be Cambodian or indigenous with Khmer nationality and living in Cambodia. They must be between 18 and 30 years old, and be able to commit to full-time study. Women and those with disabilities are encouraged to apply.
“They will study for free and we will provide all materials. They will be provided with health insurance during their studies we will offer accommodation to students who do not have family in Phnom Penh. The will receive certificates of graduation and get the chance to present their work in local and international film festivals. Of course, the skills they learn will likely lead to them finding future employment in the
film industry,” he added.
Mang Lean, 26, is amember of the indigenous Tampuan ethnic group and currently lives in La-eun Kraen village, O’Chum commune, O’Chum district, Ratanakiri province. Lean currently works for the Conserve Indigenous Peoples Languages Organisation as a media officer who has worked on community coordination and video production since the beginning of 2020.
He studied with the Bophana project “Amplifying the Voices of Indigenous Women and Discriminated Groups through Innovative Multimedia” in 2019 and produced a documentary on the subject of child marriages. Lean said that teaching documentary filmmaking to young Cambodians – especially young people from indigenous communities – was invaluable.
“At first, I did not even know how to hold a camera, nevermind how to plan a shot or caprture video. After being trained by the Bophana project, I was able to record video, write scripts and direct my own documentaries,” he said.
“Since graduating, in addition to my regular work, I have produced a lot of documentaries about my own ethnic group and shared my experiences with the youth of my community,” he added.
In partnership with the University of California, Berkeley and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the programme will host a twoweek annual exchange that will introduce Bophana’s archivists to specialists from the archive, who will expand their expertise in film preservation and archive management, expanding access to the audio-visual memory of Cambodian culture.
The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to strengthen public discourse by promoting innovative scholarships, training new leaders, and promoting international awareness. The Foundation promotes its mission by providing assistance and leadership programs in Asia, in higher education, religion and art theory and public policy.
Founded in 1936 by Henry R Luce, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time, Inc., the foundation’s current program reflects the values Luce placed on learning and leadership.
The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center was established in 2005 and is a leading non-profit and non-governmental audio-visual archive center committed to reviving Cambodian memories and promoting Khmer culture through art and multimedia.
The purpose is to rebuild memories from Cambodia under the theme of “Saving and Resuscitating Yesterday and Today’s Memories.” The centre collects and protects audio-visual archives of Cambodia, including films, photographs and audio archives from around the world.
Giving the public access to this audio-visual heritage and training young people in film production aims to facilitate freedom of expression through art in the Kingdom. It is hoped that these efforts will help the Cambodian people to gradually restore their priceless heritage and enable them to understand the past, build the present and shape their future.