JOLIE TACKLES KHMER ROUGE BRUTALITY
Angelina Jolie unveiled her new film on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era yesterday at the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, a country the star shares a deep affinity with through her adopted son, Maddox.
Cambodia’s king and survivors of the communist regime were among hundreds invited to the debut screening of First They Killed My
Father, directed by Jolie and based on the memoirs of Loung Ung.
Loung Ung was 5 when the Khmer Rouge swept into Phnom Penh, plunging her family into a harrowing ordeal in brutal labour camps before she escaped to the United States.
In its quest for an agrarian Marxist utopia, the regime killed up to two million Cambodians from 19751979 through execution, starvation and overwork.
“The movie reflects the brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime,” Sin Chanchhaya, director of Cambodia’s Cinema and Cultural Diffusion Department, said.
“This is a big deal for us. There is a strong interest among the Cambodian people.”
It is the second movie Jolie has made tackling the subject of genocide — in 2011, she made a film about the Bosnian conflict featuring entirely local actors.
But her latest silver screen offering is more personal.
At a press conference here, Jolie described Cambodia as a “second home”, adding that she chose Loung Ung’s book because she wanted to tell the story of the Khmer Rouge era “through the eyes of a child”.
“I wanted to focus not just on the war, but on the love of family and on the beauty of the country. I wanted to understand what my son’s birth parents may have gone through. I wanted to know him and this country better.”
Jolie’s six children, three of whom are adopted, accompanied her for an audience with King Norodom Sihamoni before the premiere.
In a tribute to those who survived the brutal regime, Jolie to ensure the film would be made by Cambodians and accessible to them.
Almost the entire film is in the Khmer language, while all the cast members and much of the crew were locals.
The film is co-produced by Rithy Panh, Cambodia’s most acclaimed filmmaker.
He lost almost all his immediate family during the Khmer Rouge years, but went on to produce searing documentaries about the genocide that helped break the silence surrounding what happened.
Loung Ung, who Jolie described as a “family friend”, said while the film centred on her family’s experience, her story would be familiar to Cambodians.
“I view it as the story of all of us.”
The premier at Angkor will be followed by screenings across the country, some seven months before the film is released to a global audience on Netflix.