Los Angeles Newspaper group
By Greg Mellen, Staff writer
04/17/2008

LONG BEACH - Emmy Award-winning producer Peter Chhun will be in the media spotlight in a big way today.

In the morning, his efforts to bring 9-year-old Cambodian Davik Teng to the United States for open-heart surgery will be featured on "Today." Later, he will be featured as a "Difference Maker" on the "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams." And at 7 p.m. at Cal State Long Beach, Chhun is premiering a documentary film he shot and produced.

The "Today" segment, titled "Davik's Heart," is scheduled to air in the half- hour segment between 8:30 and 9 a.m.

That segment, much of which Chhun shot, follows the journey of Davik from a tiny village in Cambodia to Long Beach and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where she received surgery for a hole in her heart called a ventricular septal defect.

On the "Nightly News," Chhun will be spotlighted for his humanitarian efforts, including bringing Davik to the United States and other projects he has undertaken with Hearts Without Boundaries, a nonprofit he founded. The "Nightly News" airs from 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the "Difference Maker" segments run late in the show.

Chhun said both segments could be withheld or postponed if more pressing news breaks.
The documentary is on more solid footing.

"Life Under Red Light, which Chhun filmed over three weeks in March of 2007, documents the harrowing effects of HIV/AIDs in Cambodia.

Throughout the hour-long documentary, Chhun lets sufferers tell the stories in their own words. The film is subtitled in English. A newsman for NBC, Chhun used vacation and personal time to film the project.

Shot in a stark question- and-answer format, the film features subjects including young factory girls who engage in unprotected sex and prostitution to make ends meet and haggard women in the final stages of the disease.

The project arose out of conversations Chhun had with the Long Beach Health Department about local Cambodian-American families living with the disease.

Chhun was unsuccessful in attempts to get Long Beach families to discuss their plight, so he went to Phnom Penh.

"By doing it this way, Cambodian people here can connect with their brothers and sisters living with the disease," Chhun said.

Diana Chea, president of the Cambodian Students Society, arranged with Chhun to have the film debut at the Long Beach Campus.

"As a student organization, we want to represent our culture to the campus and the community - the good, the bad and the ugly," Chea said.

Chhun is hoping to show his film at USC and UCLA, as well.

The event today is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Beach Auditorium inside the Student Union Center. The film will be followed by a question-and- answer period.