The Golden Age Reborn: Cambodian Cinema and Its Global Stars

By the ULTIMATE Phnom Penh Editorial Team

From the golden age to The Missing Picture

From the early 1960s to 1975, Cambodian studios made at least 300 films, by some counts more than 400: folk legends, romances and musicals, with stars such as Dy Saveth and songs by Sinn Sisamouth. Under the Khmer Rouge, from 1975 to 1979, cinema stopped, many artists were lost and most of the films were destroyed; only a few dozen are known to survive.

Rithy Panh rebuilt the memory. His Rice People (1994) was the first Cambodian film in competition at Cannes, and The Missing Picture (2013), told with clay figures, won the Un Certain Regard prize and became the first Cambodian film nominated for the Oscar. In 2006 he co-founded the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh, an archive that gives the public free access to the country’s films, photographs and sound.

Must-watch films

To understand Cambodian cinema, start with these.

• Rice People (1994): Rithy Panh’s story of a farming family, the first Cambodian film in competition at Cannes.
• The Missing Picture (2013): Panh’s memoir in clay figures, nominated for the Oscar.
• Golden Slumbers (2011): Davy Chou’s documentary search for the lost films of the golden age.
• Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten (2014): John Pirozzi’s documentary on Cambodia’s 1960s rock and roll.
• Return to Seoul (2022): Davy Chou’s drama of a young adoptee, Cambodia’s entry for the Oscar.

The stars

The faces and voices of Cambodia’s golden age, and its heirs.

• Dy Saveth: the first Miss Cambodia, in 1959, star of more than a hundred films from 1962 and a teacher in Phnom Penh since her return in 1993.
• Kong Som Eun and Vichara Dany: the romantic leads of the 1960s and early 1970s.
• Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea: the singers whose voices filled the films.
• Rithy Panh and Davy Chou: the directors who carry the story forward.

Where to watch in Phnom Penh

Meta House on Street 228, a German-Cambodian cultural centre, holds regular film screenings, and the Institut français du Cambodge shows French and Cambodian films. The Bophana Center, the archive Rithy Panh co-founded, opens Cambodia’s film heritage to visitors, and the malls have modern multiplexes for new releases.

Our advice: watch Golden Slumbers before you come, then look for the old cinema buildings of the golden age in the city centre.

Meta House →   Institut français du Cambodge →   Phnom Penh’s arts: the back story →

Hidden on the silver screen: international productions filmed in Cambodia

Angkor’s temples have drawn film-makers for sixty years.

• Lord Jim (1965), Angkor: Peter O’Toole spent months filming Joseph Conrad’s story among the temples.
• In the Mood for Love (2000), Angkor Wat: Wong Kar-wai’s masterpiece ends with a secret whispered into a temple wall.
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat: Angelina Jolie made the jungle-wrapped Ta Prohm famous as the “Tomb Raider temple”.
• First They Killed My Father (2017): Angelina Jolie’s film, in Khmer with a Cambodian cast, was Cambodia’s entry for the Oscar.

Cambodia and the world

Cambodians abroad have kept the story alive. Davy Chou, born in France, the grandson of a golden-age producer, returned to make Golden Slumbers and Diamond Island; Rithy Panh, who trained in Paris, chaired the Caméra d’Or jury at Cannes in 2019; and Angelina Jolie filmed First They Killed My Father in Cambodia with a Cambodian cast, in the Khmer language.

Questions and answers