Socheata Poeuv with father Nin Poeuv in New Year Baby. By ROBERT PHILPOT
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
On Christmas Day 2002, Socheata Poeuv's Cambodian-born mother dropped a bombshell on the young woman: Poeuv's two older sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was born to a different father.
Poeuv's mother, Houng Poeuv, had a husband and a daughter who died in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, the repressive regime that controlled the country from 1975 to 1979. Houng Poeuv had a son who survived, and she got married again to Nin Poeuv, Socheata's father.
When Houng Poeuv's sister died, leaving two daughters, Houng Poeuv adopted her nieces and raised them as her daughters.
Poeuv's parents had kept this secret for 25 years.
"I was shocked that the family I grew up knowing wasn't what it appeared to be," says Poeuv, 28. "I felt a little bit of betrayal, a sense that my parents could not trust me with this information. At the same time, it was extremely, extremely emotional to see my parents, for the first time, look so vulnerable."
Poeuv, who grew up in Dallas but was born in a Thai refugee camp on April 13, the Cambodian New Year, found herself having to sort things out. She picked up a camera and started interviewing her parents, which was a challenge given their reserved nature.
"There was some resistance in the beginning," says Poeuv, whose film of the story, New Year Baby, airs as an Independent Lens entry tonight on KERA/Channel 13. "I certainly had to struggle between whether I had to be a good daughter in that moment and try and protect them, or if I really wanted to get the story and ... document it."
Poeuv had to build up the courage to ask her parents to participate in the film, in which she and her family journey back to Cambodia. In one of the most eye-opening scenes, Poeuv and her father confront a former Khmer Rouge official, whose excuse for letting 1.7 million Cambodians die of starvation (if they weren't executed) is a variation on "I was only following orders."
One of Poeuv's goals with the film -- which is her first -- was to educate viewers about the Khmer Rouge. With the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Southeast Asia was less in America's consciousness as the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia for the next four years.
"I think the vast majority of Americans have never heard of the Khmer Rouge and don't know anything about it," Poeuv says. "If you were alive during the '70s, you may have heard something. But it's really not at the forefront of people's common knowledge at all."
After leaving Cambodia and spending a couple of years in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, Nin and his wife moved to Dallas in 1982 and have stayed there ever since. The movie includes several interview segments in which the parents, sitting on a love seat, seem reluctant to look at the camera or each other as they answer questions.
"This was the first time that, publicly, anyone has asked them about their relationship," Poeuv says. "And so for them to just sit there and talk about it was a little uncomfortable with them. They seemed to have a hard time just kind of being in each other's face and talking about the relationship at the first time."
Although the film is making its TV debut tonight, it has won awards at several film festivals, including best documentary at last year's inaugural AFI Dallas International Film Festival. As the film has been shown, Poeuv's parents have gotten more used to the attention.
"The experience of watching the film with an audience, and having the audience affirm their experience, [has] transformed their relationship to the past," Poeuv says. "The first time they saw the film was in the living room at home, and the second time they saw the film, they were in a theater in Dallas with a sold-out audience. The audience ... gave them a standing ovation when I brought them up to the stage.
"My mother took over the Q&A," she adds with a laugh. "And afterward, there was like a receiving line of audience members who wanted to come up to them ... and express their gratitude. I know my parents have never been honored like this before, because they're broken-English immigrants who in our day-to-day life are invisible. That experience was so big for them."
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
On Christmas Day 2002, Socheata Poeuv's Cambodian-born mother dropped a bombshell on the young woman: Poeuv's two older sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was born to a different father.
Poeuv's mother, Houng Poeuv, had a husband and a daughter who died in Cambodia during the rule of the Khmer Rouge, the repressive regime that controlled the country from 1975 to 1979. Houng Poeuv had a son who survived, and she got married again to Nin Poeuv, Socheata's father.
When Houng Poeuv's sister died, leaving two daughters, Houng Poeuv adopted her nieces and raised them as her daughters.
Poeuv's parents had kept this secret for 25 years.
"I was shocked that the family I grew up knowing wasn't what it appeared to be," says Poeuv, 28. "I felt a little bit of betrayal, a sense that my parents could not trust me with this information. At the same time, it was extremely, extremely emotional to see my parents, for the first time, look so vulnerable."
Poeuv, who grew up in Dallas but was born in a Thai refugee camp on April 13, the Cambodian New Year, found herself having to sort things out. She picked up a camera and started interviewing her parents, which was a challenge given their reserved nature.
"There was some resistance in the beginning," says Poeuv, whose film of the story, New Year Baby, airs as an Independent Lens entry tonight on KERA/Channel 13. "I certainly had to struggle between whether I had to be a good daughter in that moment and try and protect them, or if I really wanted to get the story and ... document it."
Poeuv had to build up the courage to ask her parents to participate in the film, in which she and her family journey back to Cambodia. In one of the most eye-opening scenes, Poeuv and her father confront a former Khmer Rouge official, whose excuse for letting 1.7 million Cambodians die of starvation (if they weren't executed) is a variation on "I was only following orders."
One of Poeuv's goals with the film -- which is her first -- was to educate viewers about the Khmer Rouge. With the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, Southeast Asia was less in America's consciousness as the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia for the next four years.
"I think the vast majority of Americans have never heard of the Khmer Rouge and don't know anything about it," Poeuv says. "If you were alive during the '70s, you may have heard something. But it's really not at the forefront of people's common knowledge at all."
After leaving Cambodia and spending a couple of years in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, Nin and his wife moved to Dallas in 1982 and have stayed there ever since. The movie includes several interview segments in which the parents, sitting on a love seat, seem reluctant to look at the camera or each other as they answer questions.
"This was the first time that, publicly, anyone has asked them about their relationship," Poeuv says. "And so for them to just sit there and talk about it was a little uncomfortable with them. They seemed to have a hard time just kind of being in each other's face and talking about the relationship at the first time."
Although the film is making its TV debut tonight, it has won awards at several film festivals, including best documentary at last year's inaugural AFI Dallas International Film Festival. As the film has been shown, Poeuv's parents have gotten more used to the attention.
"The experience of watching the film with an audience, and having the audience affirm their experience, [has] transformed their relationship to the past," Poeuv says. "The first time they saw the film was in the living room at home, and the second time they saw the film, they were in a theater in Dallas with a sold-out audience. The audience ... gave them a standing ovation when I brought them up to the stage.
"My mother took over the Q&A," she adds with a laugh. "And afterward, there was like a receiving line of audience members who wanted to come up to them ... and express their gratitude. I know my parents have never been honored like this before, because they're broken-English immigrants who in our day-to-day life are invisible. That experience was so big for them."
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