Description

What happens when a 1.5-generation Cambodian American seeks answers about the Khmer Rouge — the ugly reign of terror under Pol Pot’s brutal regime? Mike Siv, a former documentary subject in Spencer Nakasako’s film REFUGEE, finds himself behind the camera on a journey from California to the Khmer Rouge Trials.

Siv is a trusty narrator as he follows a feisty professor who corrals survivors to travel to Cambodia to testify in the trials. Siv is himself a survivor, having fled Cambodia at age 3.

The silence over the decades — Siv says that his own mother, a survivor, never talks about the past — is broken by the brave Cambodian American survivors. Yet, the true hero of the film is an unlikely one. The documentary takes an unexpected turn when the son of a high-profile convicted war criminal, who oversaw the killings of thousands, joins the Cambodian American refugees on a journey to seek justice.

With support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, this film is co-produced with CAAM. This is the film’s world premiere.

— Momo Chang

Co-presented by: Chinese for Affirmative Action

Credits

Director/Writer/Cinematographer/Editor/: Michael Siv
Executive Producer: Stephen Gong, Spencer Nakasako, Jean Tsien
Producer: Don Young
Cinematographer/Sound: Richard Parks
Editor: Lou Nakasako, Tiffany Peckosh

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