DOCU PREMIERE: Children in Cambodia grow up in a dangerous world. BOOMTOWN BABYLON PHNOM PENH (2014, 10 min) tells the story of a displaced family of slum-dwellers who find themselves abandoned in a half-built relocation site called “Peace City 2” on the outskirts of Cambodia’s capital. Much of the film's footage was shot by a 12-year-old scavenger called Srey Neng, after directors Vincent Moon and Lotje Sodderland gave her a camera to document her new life. As casualties of Cambodia's forced evictions, Neng and her family have been churned out of the city, on margins where they can be neither seen nor heard, to make way for the dream projects of the new elite.

Tonight, we are also screening three other short documentaries about disadvantaged kids.

* From a poorly built basement, a girl reveals a fundamental part of her present life, for Ly Polen’s short docu A DAUGHTER’S SCAR (2013, 6 min). The memory of her painful and frightening springtime reflects a common portrait found in the lives of many young girls in Cambodian society. Filmmaker Polen Ly – a former medical student - is considered one of the most talented young directors from the Kingdom. In the last years, his short films and documentaries have won him a number of international prizes.
* Cambodia suffers from high rates of mental illness, and very little treatment. Children with Down Syndrome, autism, or other disabilities typically led isolated lives. Greatly stigmatized even within their own families, Cambodian children with disabilities had nearly no options for education, therapy, or social interaction. Marc Eberle’s short documentary BREAKING THE CAGE (2013, 13 min) tells the harrowing story about a girl with Down Syndrome, who is kept in a cage by her parents.
Syndrome in Cambodia, who is kept
* San Pattica is a mixed Cambodian-Cameroonian son whose father came to work in Cambodia in 1992-1993, a period of the first Cambodia election after the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed. Since his parents left home for many years, Pattica was raised by his grandmother. Challenge and difficulty in his family forced his grandmother to bring Pattica to study and live in an orphanage in Phnom Penh. Pattica has become more interested in knowing about his own identity since he is a victim of discrimination in his daily life. Pattica’s story is told by young Cambodian director Neang Kavich in WHERE I GO (2012, 55 min). Q&A with director after screening.