Powerful propaganda

Ieng Thirith, a Khmer Rouge mouthpiece, now on trial for crimes against humanity; wife of Ieng Sary

Pen Sovann, who became the Prime Minister but was later arrested and held in a Vietnamese prison for a decade

Meta House was full as a tin of sardines last night, as people came out of the woodwork to watch an extraordinary historical documentary film - Kampuchea : Death and Rebirth - by the East German filmmakers Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann, who were one of the first reporting crews to get access to Cambodia after the expulsion of the Khmer Rouge from power in the spring of 1979. It certainly lived up to its billing of unique and raw footage from a devastated Cambodia, though its stilted and forced dialogue, constant reference to the Pol Pot-Ieng Sary clique and overtly political leanings made it grating to watch at times. The mesmeric journey through the completely empty streets of Phnom Penh and the interviews with the handful of shell-shocked inhabitants who'd managed to survive the genocide, often by hiding their true identities, was powerful stuff for the time. British audiences had already seen some of the shocking scenes from Cambodia in John Pilger's Year Zero documentary in October 1979 but the Heynowski/Scheumann film featured more interviews and street scenes. It also contained interviews with leading characters such as Pen Sovann, the leader of the new Kampuchean authorities, a youthful student named Khieu Kanharith, who is now the Minister of Information and Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Thirith, who is currently awaiting trial in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity, and who blamed the country's ills on Vietnam, admitting only that the KR had evacuated the capital. Powerful stuff.

A youthful Khieu Kanharith, the current Minister of Information

Tags: cambodia