Cambodia on TV

Last night on Channel 4 television in the UK, the Alive series brought us the story of Chris Moon, the British de-miner who was captured by the Khmer Rouge in 1993 and lived to tell the tale, in Kidnapped in the Killing Fields. It was a dramatised reconstruction with Moon himself providing most of the commentary. As the credits rolled at the end, I saw that my pals Kulikar Sotho, as the programme's Fixer, and Nick Ray were involved in supporting the filming in Cambodia, which they tell me took place in July 2005 and lasted about two weeks. The location for the filming was the village of Tahan on Phnom Kulen, which was used to replicate the Khmer Rouge stronghold that Moon and his interpreter and driver were taken to and held captive for three days. My blog post on Chris Moon contains more information about the programme.

Kulikar (pictured) and Nick, who include the films Tomb Raider and Two Brothers amongst their feature film successes in Cambodia, and a host of other documentary and television credits, also have a few other current tv projects in the offing. Filming has recently ended for a BBC Horizon drama on bird flu, they're working on a programme based around war tourism which will include Cambodia and Vietnam, The Lost World of Albert Kahn is based on his majestic photographic collection that includes both countries, whilst 1,000 Places to See Before You Die will feature both Phnom Penh and Angkor. When they're not involved in making these programmes happen, they're responsible for leading tour groups for their own company Hanuman Tourism and Nick also finds time to write the odd guidebook or six, as editor of the Lonely Planet, and others. You can read more about Nick Ray here. Meanwhile Kulikar has other strings to her bow, one of which I'll tell you about in the next day or two.