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

Insufficient Justice: Socheata Poeuv Reacts to Khmer Rouge Verdict

Director Socheata Poeuv

Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv was outside the courtroom on July 26, 2010, as Kaing Guek Eav (aka Comrade Duch) was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 35 years (19 including time served) by an international tribunal. The director of the Independent Lens film New Year Baby, Poeuv was born in a refugee camp in Thailand during Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, which took the lives of many of her family members. She reacts to the verdict and the sentence for Beyond the Box.

On July 26, I went to the Khmer Rouge tribunal (at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in Phnom Penh) to listen to the judgment of Comrade Duch, the former commander of S-21 (Tuol Sleng), the Khmer Rouge’s most infamous prison and torture center. Hundreds of Cambodians and journalists also gathered to witness the historic moment.

As the judge read the guilty verdict, I was moved to hear the narrative of Duch’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. Although I had read of and heard an account of the crimes of S-21 many times in books and films, hearing the legal summary help to legitimize and validate the suffering of victims, including those in my family. I was glad this was now entering the official historical and legal record.
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Tags: Cambodia, commrade duch, documentary, Independent Lens, ITVS, khmer rouge, new year baby, PBS, socheata poeuv, Thailand

Watch DEATH OF A SHAMAN on Global Voices on PBS WORLD

Through a journey that takes her back to her roots in Thailand, a young Mien woman from Sacramento strives to come to terms with her father’s death and drug addiction, and her sister’s murder. Reunited with her Mien relatives, she begins to grasp the complexity of her father’s past and experience the nuances of lost identity.

Watch a preview below:

DEATH OF A SHAMAN airs Sunday, May 24 at 10:00 PM on Global Voices on PBS WORLD (check local listings). A Co-presentation with KVIE/Sacramento and CAAM

Tags: drugs, Sacramento, Thailand