Jimi in Khmer

One of my favourite singers, Jimi Lundy, has just released a new music video directed by Red Sense filmmaker Tim Pek, called When Tomorrow Comes. Sung in the Khmer language, the video features karaoke star Chan Chakrya as well as Jimi of course. Keep your eyes peeled for a new album from Jimi sometime this year.

Where's the sense in that?

The Red Sense will be shown next Saturday in Dandenong, Australia

A few months ago I hosted the feature film The Red Sense at Meta House for its first showing in Phnom Penh. Director Tim Pek's drama-thriller will now get another showing, next Saturday in Dandenong in Australia, for a charity event that will also include live performances from Jimi Lundy, who sang 'Cambodia' in the film, and the movie's composer Robert John Sedky. The music by the way is excellent and stands alone as a soundtrack worth getting. Amongst the projects on Tim Pek's future agenda is a film about the greatest king in Khmer history, Jayavarman VII, and strange as it may seem, posters (see below) for the film appeared recently in Sorya Market and other cd shops around Phnom Penh. The film is still very much on the drawing board and in Tim's head so to publicise it with an old poster that he made up a couple of years ago, is a bit weird. Nobody seems to know where the posters came from. Nevertheless, there's talk of a 10-minute promo film being made early next year, so watch this space.

The 7th Jayavarman film is still on the drawing board

Red Sense screening - a week away

A week tonight, on Friday 24 April at 7pm, The Red Sense will get its first screening in Phnom Penh at Meta House, near Wat Botum. Everyone is welcome. You can see the poster for the film here. The film is a Khmer story, played by Khmer actors with dialogue in the Khmer language, with English subtitles. It is set in Australia and Cambodia and deals with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge, so it's very timely, with the KR Tribunals currently taking place here in Phnom Penh. The film's Battambang-born director Tim Pek can't make the screening in person, so I asked him a few questions by email in order to provide more of an insight into his debut feature film and filmmaking in general.

Q. As the director, what do you want the audience to feel and take away, from your debut film? A. As the director, I really want to give the audience something to think about when they leave their seats and share my knowledge. Many directors do a short horror as their debut film as I guess it's a good way to explore their passion and show the audience an array of creativity. That crossed my mind also, but I wanted to extend myself and use my abilities, so I decided to go with a drama-thriller genre film, with a sense that everyone can relate to this universal theme.

Q. How do you think a Khmer audience will view the film differently from a non-Khmer audience, and has that been evident so far? A. So far we have had a lot of positive testimonials and feedback from Australian audiences, but I think it's going to be very different from a Khmer audience in Cambodia. Our work will be different for them, we use real voices, no dubbing, we have written an original soundtrack and theme songs, and used dolby surround sound, etc. And the story is quite fresh and unique as well. I hope they will follow the same path in making their films in the future.

Q. How do you see your film contributing to the genre of Cambodian filmmakers, old and news? A. We know what sort of genre Khmer audiences expect to see, ie. ghost or period pieces, which is the reason we are taking a different approach, hoping they will be interested in our vision and begin to move away from the genre they are stuck in. We really want to bring our film industry back on track like they used to produce in the early 1960s and '70s.

Q. Is it important to make a feature film on the life and times, and impact on Cambodian history, by King Jayavarman VII? Is it important to concentrate on history, or to produce films that focus on today and provide a current dialogue? A. Due to the reconciliation issues we are facing currently and plus the Khmer Rouge Tribunal which is happening in Phnom Penh right now, I am hoping to pass a message through my film and help to heal some wounds suffered by the Khmer survivors as well as bring it to the fore of the younger generation. To follow in the footsteps of our greatest King, Jayavarman VII is the ideal task for a filmmaker, and which I would love to bring to the screen. Most importantly, it is about awakening the Khmer spirit to love each other and to protect our territory, as we are doing currently with the Preah Vihear situation.

Q. What is your next film project? A. I have two projects at the post production stage right now: Bokator, The Great Angkorian Martial Art and Annoyed, Dead Messenger. I must admit that both projects have been in post production for a while now, I haven't forgotten them though, and hope people will be a little more patient and hang in with me, as I need a bit more time for research and finding resources. They will be released this year.

Q. Finally, what are the frustrations, and joys of being a filmmaker? A. That's a good question. To balance it out, not much frustration for me, I view it more like joy, which helps keep my momentum going and inspire me to produce the best quality work I can. Perhaps the downside of filmmaking is choosing the right talents and mundane stuff like getting permissions for locations, and not to mention editing, etc. The joys are one word - Result - that's when we know our limits and can learn from it as a filmmaker, but also we can make people happy with our work, as well as make them think.

My thanks to Tim for his replies. His co-screenwriter, director of photography and co-star Rithy Dourng will be at next Friday's screening and will introduce the film, as well as be available to answer any questions afterwards. Make sure you come and meet Rithy in person. Find out more about The Red Sense here.

Pek on Pek

In the run up to the first screening of The Red Sense in Phnom Penh - it will be screened at Meta House, next to Wat Botum, on Friday 24 April at 7pm - here's a brief interview with the film's director Tim Pek (pictured), a Cambodian now relocated to Melbourne in Australia, where he combined shooting his debut film with a number of scenes shot in Cambodia. Three years in the making, he employed Khmer actors, speaking in Khmer, with English subtitles. Find out more about the film here.

Here's the interview:
'I was born in Battambang and raised in a decent family, we ran a mixed business back in Cambodia, but unfortunately I only lived there for 8 years. So not much in the way of good childhood memories, moreso I recall seeing those terrified survivors from the Khmer Rouge regime, literally a hell on earth. And still haunting me, which I have never forgot.

A few years after the civil war, my family decided to leave everything and escaped to Khao-I-Dang camp as refugees in Thailand for 4 years before settling in Australia, and now living in Melbourne, one of the best cities in the world in my opinion.
Before getting heavily involved in The Red Sense project, I got motivated and inspired by a few short films back in the early 2005, from friends in Melbourne. I'd been very interested in this medium and always had dreams to make films since I was in my teens, but back then it was quite impossible to do so, everything were so expensive and was simply too hard to achieve when I was at college. In early 2000 I got myself a job and gained an abundance of designing and video skills which then gave me the confidence to make a film in such scale, and ironically its my debut film.
I urge all Khmer people living everywhere to pay respect and support to those hard-working Cambodian film directors and producers to make more films, as you know our film production is in rapid decline. I believe they can make good films so please support them and lets get back to making films like we did in the golden era of the 60s and 70s.

Finally, I have other two projects in post production, Bokator and Annoyed, hopefully they will be available on DVD later this year and can be searched in google.com.'

Click to enlarge

It makes sense

I've some news hot off the press for you: the first-ever Phnom Penh screening of Tim Pek's feature-film directorial debut, The Red Sense, will take place on Friday 24th April at 7pm at Meta House, next to Wat Botum. After receiving a Cambofest award when it got its first Cambodian screening in Siem Reap in December, Pek's made-in-Australia film about revenge and forgiveness when a women discovers the identity of the Khmer Rouge cadre who killed her father, will be very timely considering the ongoing Khmer Rouge Tribunal that begins again today in Phnom Penh. There were fears that the film's topic was too sensitive for some to be screened here, but it will now be shown afterall. You can find out more about the film here and I'll be bringing you additional news from The Red Sense camp closer to the screening date.

This Wednesday night (1 April) at Meta House, to coincide with the start of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, journalist/author/filmmaker Tom Fawthrop will present his rarely-seen documentary, Dreams & Nightmares: Cambodia Ten Years After Pol Pot, which he directed and produced for Channel 4 in 1989, and other films focusing on the Khmer Rouge legacy, beginning at 7pm.