Hello Cambodia

So excited to be going to Cambodia this year as part of an Asialink Arts Residency project supported by Arts Queensland. This blog will track some of my research and times exploring and working on a project about Cambodian people and culture. The residency is with JavaArts.

After Mick heard a Radio National program on the Cambodian Film industry in the 1960s, I tracked it down online here. Music and films from that ‘golden’ time grew at an incredible rate and were strongly influenced by the west. Not long after, many films were destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime. Some music survived. Tragically many film-makers, stars, artists, musicians were killed. Even after 1979, film’s weren’t allowed to be made again until 1987, almost 10 years after the downfall of the Khmer Rouge.

Davy Chou has made a documentary about Cambodian people remembering those times, through the eyes of survivors and the surviving families. It’s inspired by his Grandfather, a well known Cambodian film-maker from the 60s.

Now I keep coming across more and more Cambodian rock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytraGmFQlhc

and pop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dwd-H1cnoA&list=PL1DC3919C2D3B843A&index=1