by Paul Clark
February 2, 2008
ASHEVILLE — A documentary coming to Asheville highlights the effects that the Khmer Rouge genocide had on the filmmaker’s family.
Socheata Poeuv, believed to be the first Cambodian-American woman to film a feature-length documentary, will screen her film at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Fine Arts Theatre.
Part of the Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, the documentary “New Year Baby” is $5 but free to students from UNC Asheville and Western Carolina University. After the film, Poeuv will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and her work as a filmmaker.
Poeuv was born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year and raised in Dallas with limited knowledge of the circumstances that brought her family to the United States. When she turned 25, her parents told her that her two sisters are really her cousins and her brother is only her half brother.
Each member of the family is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, smuggled to Thailand by Poeuv’s father before the family immigrated to the United States. Learning this raised more questions for Poeuv than it answered.
In “New Year Baby,” her debut documentary, Poeuv and her brother travel with their parents to Cambodia to reconnect with their past and to discover and document the family’s legacy of survival.
Poeuv’s film is a combination documentary and travel diary that sheds light on one of the darkest chapters in the history of human rights and the life of her family.
“New Year Baby” received Amnesty International Movies That Matter Award at its 2006 premiere and earned international acclaim as the Best Documentary Award at both the AFI Dallas International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, a program of the not-for-profit regional arts organization Southern Arts Federation, is brought to Asheville by the Media Arts Project.
February 2, 2008
ASHEVILLE — A documentary coming to Asheville highlights the effects that the Khmer Rouge genocide had on the filmmaker’s family.
Socheata Poeuv, believed to be the first Cambodian-American woman to film a feature-length documentary, will screen her film at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Fine Arts Theatre.
Part of the Southern Arts Federation’s Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, the documentary “New Year Baby” is $5 but free to students from UNC Asheville and Western Carolina University. After the film, Poeuv will engage the audience in a discussion about the film and her work as a filmmaker.
Poeuv was born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year and raised in Dallas with limited knowledge of the circumstances that brought her family to the United States. When she turned 25, her parents told her that her two sisters are really her cousins and her brother is only her half brother.
Each member of the family is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, smuggled to Thailand by Poeuv’s father before the family immigrated to the United States. Learning this raised more questions for Poeuv than it answered.
In “New Year Baby,” her debut documentary, Poeuv and her brother travel with their parents to Cambodia to reconnect with their past and to discover and document the family’s legacy of survival.
Poeuv’s film is a combination documentary and travel diary that sheds light on one of the darkest chapters in the history of human rights and the life of her family.
“New Year Baby” received Amnesty International Movies That Matter Award at its 2006 premiere and earned international acclaim as the Best Documentary Award at both the AFI Dallas International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, a program of the not-for-profit regional arts organization Southern Arts Federation, is brought to Asheville by the Media Arts Project.
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