Cambodian film festival opens without top guest
Cambodian film festival opens without top guest
PHNOM PENH (Reuter): A landmark film festival got under way in
Cambodia yesterday, but guest of honor Alain Delon failed to make
it for the opening.
The First Southeast Asian Biennial Film Festival kicked off
with the showing of an Indonesian film, Cemeng 2005, the Last
Primadonna.
Alain Delon was due to attend an open-air showing of his 1981
film -- For the Skin of a Cop (Pour la Peau d'Un Flic), but
organizers said his arrival had been postponed and they hoped he
would be able to make it today.
Twelve films from Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam will be taking part in
competition during the week-long festival.
Indonesian actress, Christine Hakim, heads an eight-member
international jury for the competition.
"There is not a lot of opportunity for Asian filmmakers to
show our works abroad and we don't have a lot of opportunity to
see other Asian films (in Asia)," said acclaimed Indonesian
actress Hakim.
She said the jury had decided to expand the awards from the
two best to the five best.
"It is important that filmmakers from developing countries
like Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysian have a chance
to be recognized," she said.
Movies from Cambodia, Myanmar, China, India, Iran and France,
including a retrospective of Delon films, will also be shown in a
fringe event.
The festival, which is expected to become a regular event
based in Phnom Penh, has been organized and sponsored by the
French Embassy, the missions of Southeast Asian countries, the
Ministry of Culture and private companies.
"I can feel today in this room, spirit for the future, for us
to work together," Hakim said in a press conference also attended
by international guests, including acclaimed French actresses
Anne Parillaud and Valerie Kaprisky.
The lack of films from the host country in the competition is
not unusual given that the Cambodian movie industry was decimated
by more than two decades of war and strife and crippled in its
new infancy by the video revolution, organizers said.
Ieu Pannakar, Minister of State in King Norodom Sihanouk
cabinet and the president of the festival's organizing
association, said nearly all of Cambodia's filmmakers were killed
or fled the country during the Khmer Rouge regime and subsequent
civil war.
"Then, since the arrival of television and video, our people
lost the taste for cinematography," he said. "So I hope (this
festival) will make Cambodians go back to movie theaters."
The festival, attended by French and regional film stars, runs
through April 5.