France / 1991 / 53mins / Documentary, Interview / Bambara and Khmer

Winning the the Jury Prize for his masterpiece, Yeelen in 1987 at Cannes Film Festival, Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé has won international recognition ever since. In this interview renowned Cambodian director Rithy Panh, Cissé delivers to the camera his passion for cinema, Africa and the world.

Rithy Panh

Rithy Panh was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in April 1964. Today, he is one of the most acclaimed documentary filmmakers and the most famous Cambodian filmmaker worldwide. After 1975 his family died during the genocidal Khmer Rouge government (1975-1979), he was able escape to Thailand in 1979. A year later, Panh arrived in Paris, France as an orphan and stayed. He later studied at 'La Fémis', the French National Cinema School. In 1989, Site 2 (1989), his first documentary about Cambodian refugees, won several international awards. Since then, Panh created a unique body of work consisting of documentaries and feature films that mostly deal with modern Cambodia and the traumatic legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. One of his most well-known documentaries is S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003), about the infamous torture prison of the Khmer Rouge. His avant-garde documentary The Missing Picture (2013) became the first Cambodian film nominated for an Academy Award for 'Best Foreign Language Film'. Rithy Panh, along with director Ieu Pannakar, developed 'Bophana: Audio Visual Resource Center - Cambodia', with an aim towards preserving the country's film, photographic and audio history. Rithy Panh received an honorary doctorate in 2011 from the University of Paris-VIII and in 2012, published his acclaimed autobiography L'Élimination. In 2014 he received the 'Preservation and Scholarship' Award from the International Documentary Association (IDA). Learn More