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David Egan, center, joins in a standing ovation for directors Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin after watching their documentary “Enemies of the People” at the Missouri Theatre Saturday afternoon. Sambath’s father died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s, and the film explores Sambath’s search for truth about the regime’s killings.
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via CAAI News Media
By Jonathon Braden
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Toward the end of “Enemies of the People,” the documentary screeches to a halt when the rich soundtrack recedes, the color drains from the frames and stark black-and-white images of rotting bodies and skeletons flash across the screen.
During yesterday’s midday showing of the film at the True/False Film Fest’s Missouri Theatre venue, the crowd of more than 900 fell silent as the images from the killing fields of Cambodia screamed out on the big screen.
The loss of his family in the Khmer Rouge regime’s killing fields was what led co-director Thet Sambath on the journey that culminated in “Enemies.” He began the project more than a decade ago with the goal of finding out the truth about the Khmer Rouge’s killing of an estimated 2 million Cambodians — his father and brother included.
Sambath’s co-director Rob Lemkin said he and Sambath chose to display the graphic images toward the end to really drive home the scale of the atrocities.
“This is what these people actually did,” Lemkin told the audience after the film when True/False co-founder David Wilson asked about the sequence.
Sambath, a Cambodian newspaper journalist, had been videotaping interviews with former Khmer Rouge deputies involved in killings and with Nuon Chea, who was Pol Pot’s deputy during the reign of terror, when he met Lemkin in 2006.
Lemkin went to Cambodia to document the trials of former Khmer Rouge leaders, including Chea, and the two struck a deal to complete “Enemies” together.
The film was this year’s True Life Fund selection at the seventh annual True/False Film Fest.
The honor has been given the past four years to “demonstrate that documentaries create change.” A monetary award is given to help compensate the filmmakers.
Johanna Oldham, the True Life Fund coordinator, estimated that $4,000 to $5,000 had been raised. The Crossing church in Columbia sponsors the fund.
“He spent so much of his own personal time and money and effort,” Oldham said of Sambath, who through his interviews got Chea to admit culpability on film.
Sambath also sacrificed time with his young family, and that storyline also played a prominent role in the film.
Most of the picture, however, documents Sambath’s efforts to reach former murderers and get them to explain how and why they killed their countrymen.
Sambath also talked to villagers who live near the killing fields, where plants and trees now grow. One woman in the film said she bathed in the nearby water.
“I know there are bodies in there,” she said, “that’s why I don’t dare to drink.”
When the film ended, the crowd rose to give a standing ovation to Lemkin and Sambath.
“I just think it was really important for people to see that,” 49-year-old Columbia resident Monica McMurry said as tears slid down her face.
This page has been revised to reflect the following correction:
SECOND THOUGHTS: Monday, March 1, 2010
A story in Sunday’s Tribune incorrectly referred to True/False Film Fest co-founder David Wilson as David Smith.
Reach Jonathon Braden at 573-815-1711 or e-mail jbraden@columbiatribune.com.
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