Trailer for A Cambodian Spring.
In Cambodia, “they used to kill with weapons, now they kill with corruption.” In the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, decades of civil war, and the installation of Hun Sen as prime minister, the oppression continues. A Cambodian Spring charts the chaotic and violent wave of change shaping modern-day Cambodia, and follows three activists over six years as they speak out against the injustices taking place all around them in the name of progress, development and democracy. Mothers Toul Srey Pov and Tep Vanny become land-rights activists when the Shukaku company begins illegally flooding their Boeung Kak Lake neighbourhood. Buddhist monk Venerable Sovath mobilizes to support his community’s protests by recording the events. In this alarming portrait of corruption’s insidious effects on trust and truth, filmmaker Chris Kelly delivers a major blow to democracy everywhere, exposing the international complicity, passivity and hypocrisy that supports business interests and the Cambodian government—not its citizens.