Description
Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center is a Cambodian non-profit organization co-founded by the award-winning filmmaker Rithy Panh, and Ieu Pannakar, former head of the Film Department at the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. Since 2006, Bophana has worked to preserve, restore and make available audiovisual material recording Cambodian history and culture, both pre- and post-Khmer Rouge, and document Cambodian stories. A key component of the Center’s work is training a young generation of Cambodian audiovisual archivists, technicians and film directors to continue development of this archive.
Over three years, our grant would support a film training program, providing one-year fellowships to 36 Khmer and indigenous youths, prioritizing women, for the production of short films on political, economic and social issues affecting marginalized people and communities in Cambodia such as land dispossession, deforestation, economic insecurity and displacement, gender discrimination, and limited access to healthcare and justice. The grant would also enable collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on film preservation and archival management to expand public access to Bophana’s material worldwide, including in Cambodian diasporic communities. The partnership would bring UC Berkeley’s Center for Southeast Asia Studies and Ethnic Studies Department together with Bophana around curriculum development, utilizing Bophana’s material for teaching on Cambodia and Indochina.
Bophana will work with the supported fellows to show the films they produce within their communities as well as at Cambodian and international film festivals, to spark reflection and conversation. The resulting dialogue, it is hoped, will help facilitate healing from genocidal wounds, amplify the voices of marginalized groups, and influence decision-makers while opening new career opportunities for Cambodian youth. Give2Asia, based in California, will serve as the fiscal sponsor for this project.