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.