A film on relatives killed during the Khmer Rouge’s tyrannical grip on Cambodia in the 1970s earned the Cambodian-French director Rithy Panh a prize at the Cannes Film Festival on -Saturday.
The 95-minute L’Image Manquante (The Missing Picture) got the top award in the festival’s Un Certain Regard category, which showcases films by emerging directors.
Panh, 49, has been previously praised for other documentaries on Cambodia’s slaughter: S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) and Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell (2012).
Based on a memoir by Panh called The Elimination, L’Image Manquante combines archive footage of the ultra-left fanaticism of the Khmer Rouge with hand-carved, painted figurines to represent his lost relatives.
“What I give you today is neither the picture nor the search for a unique image, but the picture of a quest,” Panh said in notes accompanying the film.
The film coincides with the trial of the Khmer Rouge's two most senior surviving leaders at a UN court in Phnom Penh for crimes against humanity, genocide and other atrocities.Up to two million people were executed or died from starvation, overwork or torture. – AFP
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