King Sihanouk wins Russian film award

King Sihanouk wins Russian film award

PHNOM PENH (Reuter): The organizers of the recent St.
Petersburg film festival have presented Cambodia's King Norodom
Sihanouk with a bronze award for his latest film, a royal
assistant said on Tuesday.

The international jury picked Sihanouk's An Ambition Reduced
to Ashes for the bronze and the festival director made the award
during a ceremony on Monday at Sihanouk's Khemarin Palace, said
Ieu Pannakar, head of the culture ministry's film department.

Pannakar, who helped the 72-year-old monarch make the film
earlier this year at northwest Cambodia's ancient Angkor temples,
had no more details. Russian embassy officials were not available
for comment.

The 46-minute color feature is set in present-day Cambodia and
tells the story of a young prince whose love for a woman
eventually costs him his magical powers.

Sihanouk has been a lover of films for half a century and some
writers have attributed his 1970 overthrow to his passion for
cinematography at the expense of politics in the late 1960s.

The king, who takes the credit as producer, scriptwriter and
score master of An Ambition Reduced to Ashes, is reported to be
working on a film entitled Flower of Vietnam, based on the
friendship between a Cambodian general and a Vietnamese lady.