kaing guek eav

On the Scene at a War Criminal’s Conviction

Filmmaker Adrian Maben

The ITVS-funded film-in-progress Comrade Duch tells the story of the gifted Cambodian mathematician turned mass killer Kaing Guek Eav and the trial to bring him to justice. Filmmaker Adrian Maben was outside the courtroom last month when Duch was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

When I started to work on Comrade Duch, it was clear in my mind that this film should not be a courtroom film with heaps of legal wrangling and judicial squabbles. The central idea was to find an answer to the question of how one man could possibly inflict so much pain on his fellow citizens and justify his acts.
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Tags: Cambodia, comrade duch, indie films, international, ITVS, kaing guek eav, khmer rouge, PBS, Thailand

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 ITVS International No Comments

The Trials of Comrade Duch

Kaing Guek Eav or "Comrade Duch"

Much ado about the sentencing of Kaing Guek Eav — known by his Khmer Rouge nickname “Comrade Duch” — to 35 years in prison (to be reduced to 19 considering time served) on July 26 in Phnom Penh by a United Nations-led tribunal. The verdict and sentence shocked many Cambodians who remember Duch’s reign of terror as a remorseless prison chief in charge of torturing and murdering as many as 16,000 Cambodians on the orders of the notorious Pol Pot. Many Cambodians were angry that the sentence had not been harsher, given the horrific nature of the crimes.

Adrian Maben, director of a recently funded ITVS film called Comrade Duch, is currently in Phnom Penh to document the sentencing and the reaction to it. Maben has directed three previous films on the Khmer Rouge for ARTE.
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Tags: adrian maben, Cambodia, comrade duch, documentary, ITVS, kaing guek eav, khmer rouge, PBS