By Carla M. Collado
Staff Writer
19/06/2008
When six local Cambodian teenage girls pre-screen their film, “Coming Together” at Long Beach City College on Saturday, they’ll make public the fruits of an almost yearlong journey to learn about their parents’ experiences as refugees of war and to explore their own identities as first-generation Cambodian-Americans.
“I feel more complete in a way,” Jennefer Heng, 17, said of working on the film. “It helped me understand my identity, where I came from.”
The girls — ages 14-18 — from Long Beach’s Khmer Girls in Action (KGA) started working on the film in October 2007 as part of the How I See It: Youth Digital Filmmakers project. The project was sponsored by the California Council for the Humanities, which gave KGA a $30,000 grant to put together its film.
For months, the teens explored the disconnections of life in America (particularly culture, language, socio-economic status and education) to find connections they have with refugees of the Khmer Rouge war, KGA Executive Director Suely Ngouy explained.
They interviewed their parents, relatives and other members of the community, such as the founders of Cambodia Town. They worked closely with Karen Quintiliani, anthropology professor at California State University, Long Beach, to learn about the history of Cambodians in Long Beach and to place the film’s stories into a historical context.
The group also worked with Mar Elepano of Visual Communications (and faculty member at the University of Southern California) to develop their story-telling skills and learn about camera techniques. Each girl had her own video camera, developed her own story line, wrote her own interview questions and produced, directed and edited her piece of the film, Ngouy said.
She explained that one of the biggest challenges for the girls was finding people who were willing to open up about their traumatic experiences escaping the Khmer Rouge and witnessing genocide, and about the hopes and dreams they have for their children.
Heng’s main interview source was her father, who was a victim of the war.
“He never talked about it at all with me,” Heng said. “I actually had to interview him several times…. It was really emotional for me to hear about my dad’s story. It made me respect him more, understand him more.”
One of the reasons she decided to participate in the film project was to discover more about her culture and her people’s history, she said.
“It was a personal experience for me,” Heng said. “It wasn’t just about making a film.”
Ngouy said that one of the most common “connections” between the teenagers and their war-refugee relatives was a desire to find a “home” or place of belonging in the world.
“They’ve really questioned, explored and discovered an aspect of their identity that they otherwise wouldn’t have discovered if they hadn’t gone through this process,” Ngouy said of the girls.
She said that the film reflects the group’s desire to inspire Long Beach’s Cambodian community — the largest outside of Cambodia — to work together to bridge generational gaps and to improve the community.
“It often takes the children or grandchildren to be able to tell the stories,” Ngouy said. “I hope that this will be a healing process for the community, to be able to begin a dialogue…. Whatever history is passed on is going to have to be passed on through the younger generation.”
The 30-minute film, “Coming Together” will pre-screen at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 21, at LBCC, Dyre Hall Room FF 107 (1305 E. Pacific Coast Hwy.), and will premiere at noon Sunday, June 29, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The group also hopes to show the film at local schools throughout the year, Ngouy said.
Visit www.californiastories.org or www.kgalb.org.
Staff Writer
19/06/2008
When six local Cambodian teenage girls pre-screen their film, “Coming Together” at Long Beach City College on Saturday, they’ll make public the fruits of an almost yearlong journey to learn about their parents’ experiences as refugees of war and to explore their own identities as first-generation Cambodian-Americans.
“I feel more complete in a way,” Jennefer Heng, 17, said of working on the film. “It helped me understand my identity, where I came from.”
The girls — ages 14-18 — from Long Beach’s Khmer Girls in Action (KGA) started working on the film in October 2007 as part of the How I See It: Youth Digital Filmmakers project. The project was sponsored by the California Council for the Humanities, which gave KGA a $30,000 grant to put together its film.
For months, the teens explored the disconnections of life in America (particularly culture, language, socio-economic status and education) to find connections they have with refugees of the Khmer Rouge war, KGA Executive Director Suely Ngouy explained.
They interviewed their parents, relatives and other members of the community, such as the founders of Cambodia Town. They worked closely with Karen Quintiliani, anthropology professor at California State University, Long Beach, to learn about the history of Cambodians in Long Beach and to place the film’s stories into a historical context.
The group also worked with Mar Elepano of Visual Communications (and faculty member at the University of Southern California) to develop their story-telling skills and learn about camera techniques. Each girl had her own video camera, developed her own story line, wrote her own interview questions and produced, directed and edited her piece of the film, Ngouy said.
She explained that one of the biggest challenges for the girls was finding people who were willing to open up about their traumatic experiences escaping the Khmer Rouge and witnessing genocide, and about the hopes and dreams they have for their children.
Heng’s main interview source was her father, who was a victim of the war.
“He never talked about it at all with me,” Heng said. “I actually had to interview him several times…. It was really emotional for me to hear about my dad’s story. It made me respect him more, understand him more.”
One of the reasons she decided to participate in the film project was to discover more about her culture and her people’s history, she said.
“It was a personal experience for me,” Heng said. “It wasn’t just about making a film.”
Ngouy said that one of the most common “connections” between the teenagers and their war-refugee relatives was a desire to find a “home” or place of belonging in the world.
“They’ve really questioned, explored and discovered an aspect of their identity that they otherwise wouldn’t have discovered if they hadn’t gone through this process,” Ngouy said of the girls.
She said that the film reflects the group’s desire to inspire Long Beach’s Cambodian community — the largest outside of Cambodia — to work together to bridge generational gaps and to improve the community.
“It often takes the children or grandchildren to be able to tell the stories,” Ngouy said. “I hope that this will be a healing process for the community, to be able to begin a dialogue…. Whatever history is passed on is going to have to be passed on through the younger generation.”
The 30-minute film, “Coming Together” will pre-screen at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 21, at LBCC, Dyre Hall Room FF 107 (1305 E. Pacific Coast Hwy.), and will premiere at noon Sunday, June 29, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The group also hopes to show the film at local schools throughout the year, Ngouy said.
Visit www.californiastories.org or www.kgalb.org.
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