In an unprecedented event, a film retrospective featuring the works of Rithy Panh, internationally renown and award-winning Cambodian filmmaker, will take place the weekend of April 19-21 on the Scripps and Pomona College campuses in Claremont. This retrospective will mark the first time Panh’s work will be shown in a public forum in the United States, and Director Panh will attend and take questions from the audience after two of the scheduled screenings. This festival is part of the Scripps College Humanities Institute Film Series, “We Say No” and is co-sponsored with the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College and the Pomona Media Studies program. All screenings and discussions with Panh are free and open to the public. For more information on this retrospective or Rithy Panh, please call Claire Bridge at the Scripps College Humanities Institute, (909) 621-8326.
To open the festival, Panh’s “The Land of Wandering Souls” will be shown on Friday, April 19, at 7:00 p.m., in the Humanities Auditorium of the Scripps campus; immediately following will be a question and answer period with Panh. On Saturday, April 20, “One Evening After The War” will show at 1:00 p.m., followed by a discussion hosted by Panh, and the festival will continue at 4:30 p.m. with a screening of “Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy.” On Sunday, April 21, “Site 2” will show at 1:00 p.m. and “The Rice People” at 6:00 p.m. All events scheduled for Saturday and Sunday will take place at the Rose Hills Theater in the Smith Campus Center on the Pomona campus.
Rithy Panh gained international notoriety and critical success for his cinema verité documentary and feature films exposing the plight of the Cambodian people during and after Cambodian communist party Khmer Rouge seized power and controlled the country from 1975-1979. These films tell the stories of Cambodians coming to terms with a future that has been determined by the horrors of the past.
Himself a refugee, Panh believes in the power of cinematic image to document and historically imprint personal memory.
As Panh notes: “After a war, either you keep silent yourselves, or you try to reconstitute what is broken [within you]. Khmer Rouge is genocide without image, except photographs. Any remainder is printed in the conscience. What you saw and lived does not stop. It is this memory that brought me to the medium of cinema.”
“It is the right time to introduce Panh’s films to an American audience,” said Rick Berg the retrospective’s curator, noting the April 17 anniversary date of the Khmer Rouge’s coup twenty-seven years ago. “These films don’t simply re-visit the past atrocities. They act as testaments. They record the Cambodian people’s fight to survive despite tremendous odds and numerous political, social, and economic barriers.”
The Rithy Panh Film Retrospective is hosted by the Scripps Humanities Institute as part of its spring symposium, “Modernity from Below,” which offers a frank look at modernity from the perspective of subordinate classes. Founded in 1986, the Scripps College Humanities Institute promotes interdisciplinary research and discussion in forums both inside and outside the Scripps College curriculum.
Co-sponsors for this event are the Pomona College media studies program and the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College. The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College exists to promote cross-cultural relationships between the United States and East Asia. In its own right a documentary film maker–its award-winning “Pacific Century” series still airs on PBS channels–the Institute provides access to a wealth of film, video and documentary material and publishes English translations of Asian authors. It also sponsors conferences, workshops and lectures featuring prominent scholars and public figures from throughout the region.