New Cambodia documentaries

In my desire to highlight and promote all films, documentaries, books and so forth that focus on Cambodia, I have news of new documentaries in progress. Cambodian Dreams, produced by Stanley Harper, has been 18 years in the making as he followed the fortunes of Yan Chhieng and her family, beginning in the Site 2 refugee camp in Thailand. Its due to be shown on Cambodian tv later this year and may even get a viewing at film festivals this Spring. Meanwhile, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Bob Elfstrom is still shooting a yet-untitled documentary on a rising star in the world of dance, Sar 'Sy' Sokvannara, a gifted Cambodian dancer who's trained at the School of American Ballet and is currently an apprentice with the Pacific Northwest Ballet School in the Seattle. The documentary will chronicle Sokvannara’s journey as a dancer as he uses the skills he learned from traditional, ritualistic Cambodian dances on the ballet stage in America.

In addition, you might be interested in these already-completed documentaries. Produced in September 2006, A Few Drops in Cambodia: Stories From a Relief Effort, is a documentary that highlights the challenges NGOs/donors face in seeking to provide health care to those most in need in Cambodia. Watch it here. Eliminated Without Bleeding is a touching and revealing one-hour documentary on the Khmer Krom indigenous peoples from the Mekong Delta in Southern Vietnam and which highlights evidence of human rights abuse. It's written, directed and produced by Rebecca Sommer. Watch it here. And if you haven't seen it on your cable channel yet, Les Guthman's superbly photographed 70-minute Churning the Sea of Time: A Journey Up The Mekong to Angkor, released last year, is now available from Amazon.com and elswehere.