The film Brother Number One will be part of a double bill in Phnom
Penh tomorrow night (Tuesday, 13 December) starting 7pm. Follows is the
outline of the two films being shown at Meta House http://www.meta-house.com (NB there is no admission fee):
7PM: CLASSIC DOCUMENTARY - In 1978, the visit by a press delegation
from a “friendly” country was part of the limited attempt by the Khmer
Rouge to garner international support, beyond China, for the coming
hostilities. Pol Pot, who (as a student) has had enjoyed summer holidays
in Yugoslavia, invited skeptical journalist Nikola Vitoric and his crew
from Yugoslav TV, who were then taken on a propaganda tour from Phnom
Penh to the countryside. The foreign journalists were also able to
capture the only existing TV interview with Khmer-Rouge-leader Pol Pot,
slowly realizing that something was completely wrong in the “communist
model state”. Meta House screens KAMPUCHEA 1978 (50 min) with English
subtitles.
8PM: DOCUMENTARY - The death of Kerry Hamill in Phnom
Penh’s Khmer Rouge prison S-21 in 1978 provided a tangible link for New
Zealanders to a genocide that claimed two million Cambodian lives.
Thirty years later, BROTHER NUMBER ONE (2011, 99 min) by acclaimed
filmmaker Annie Goldson follows Hamill’s brother Rob — an Olympian and
Trans-Atlantic rowing champion — as he attends the war crimes trial of
Comrade Duch, one of the architects of the slaughter. He is there to
make a victim impact statement but also to understand how his brother
died, confront the man responsible and discover whether forgiveness is
possible. Around Hamill's personal story, Goldson and her editors have
skilfully and unobtrusively wound a larger story of Cambodian history.
Assembled from what must have been hundreds of hours of footage and
available archive material, BROTHER NUMBER ONE is a film that has come
to life in the editor's hands.It moves, it speaks, and at its best, it
entrances.
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