Slain unionist remembered

Long Beach hipster wannabe Sovanna receives a cryptic letter from Cambodia claiming that her long-lost brother and sister are still alive. Ditching her dead-end lifestyle and alcoholic father, Sovanna travels to her birthplace alone to seek out her two siblings who disappeared during the civil war 20 years earlier. With guidance from a quirky motorbike driver named Munny, Sovanna launches her search into the dark corners of Cambodia. Upon discovering a girl who may or may not be her real sister, Sovanna is ensnared into an increasingly dangerous situation, pitting her in a tug-of-war between her own personal safety, and her compassion for a stranger.

OFFICIAL SITE: www.twoshadowsmovie.com

Archives of Cambodian impressionist paintings are currently being exhibited in California. Painted by the late You Khin, the artwork is a dedication to the history of Cambodia, as well as the atrocities committed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge – with a particular focus on themes of displacement and genocide.

But You Khin’s legacy is also a long way from contemporary Cambodia, which is changing fast. Fifteen years ago, Cambodian art was virtually non-existent, with only a handful of painters practicing their trade. And, like You Khin, their focus was typically restricted to the horrors of the Killing Fields and war, or pleasant pictures of Angkor Wat and rural scenes.
(click pic or link for read full story)

MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.
Cover: praCh.Ly
Vol. 34 (2009) through current issue

Published by: MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States

Bochan's debut album "Full Monday Moon" now available on Bandcamp.com / bochan.bandcamp.com/ Get the early bird special - download the entire 11 track LP here first before it hits iTunes, Amazon, etc. for only $7!

praCh Headlining Solebury School for a lecture and performance on 11/15/11.

Solebury School's Chorus of over 100 students will be assisting praCh on a song titled "one".

Here (below) is some info on what lead praCh to attend Solebury School.

Solebury School’s Chorus Director, Phyllis Arnold, was always fascinated with the Holocaust, and never understood how the world population did not know what was going on in Germany at that time.

“How could they not listen to the stories of people that had escaped? How could they be so blind to the cries of millions?” said Arnold. “Was it that they didn’t want to see it? Was the Nazi propaganda machine too overpowering? There have been genocides since throughout recorded history. And in spite of what we all know, they still seem to go on today.”...

The first song, Out of the Poison Tree, is actually a rap piece that will be arranged as a spoken word poem, and was composed by rapper Prach Ly, born in secret in a Cambodian concentration camp in 1979 during the Communist Party of Kampuchea or Khmer Rouge regime. His parents managed to escape Pol Pot’s Cambodia, walking miles to eventual freedom from the killing fields. Ly’s music reflects those experiences. He has agreed to come to Solebury School in November to share his story with students.

Read full story: "Click Here"

The 'Enemies of the People' Two Disc Special Edition homevideo DVD will be released Early 2012. It is available to pre-order on Amazon.com now. The DVD has over six hours of extra features and a 28 page booklet of articles related to the film. 

Public or Educational use DVD

The 'Enemies of the People' institutional DVD for use in schools and universities is available to purchase now. If you are an educational institution and would like to add the DVD of 'Enemies of the People' to your library and use it in class please click here.

If you are a student and would like to show the film at your institution, please click here or please ask the institution's librarian responsible for acquisitions to contact us using the contact form on this website.

The Cambodian American Business Association, CAMBA, would like to invite you to join the Business and Culture Expo 2011 on Sunday August 28, 2011. 

The Opening Session Ceremony will start at 10:00 A.M at the Mark Twain Library, Long Beach, CA.  The CAMBA Business and Culture Expo 2011 will then proceed on the Parking Lot celebration with live Cambodian classical dance, different ethnic dance groups, arts & craft, Khmer’s ethnic and drinks will be served, and Business vendors will take place from 10:00 A.M to 3:00 P.M.

Attached are the necessary forms, which must be completed in order for you to participate.  The following information will help you complete registration for the Business and Culture Expo 2011:

1. Complete the application(s) appropriate for your participation choice(s).
2. Make sure that all Parental Consent/Waivers of Liability are signed, and submit with your application(s).
3. Enclose a money order or cashier’s check for the total amount required with your application(s).
4. Refund Policy: No refunds on or after July 28, 2011.
5. Send the completed application package, including all waiver forms and the entire payment to the following address:

Cambodian American Business Association - CAMBA
1902 E. Anaheim Street Suite
Long Beach, CA 90813

Mr. Remy Hou – Co-Chair & Event Coordinator
Office: 424.CAMBA89 (424.226.2289)
Email: camba@cambaonline.org 

2011 Knight International Journalism Award
Thet Sambath, senior reporter for the Phnom Penh Post and a documentary filmmaker

www.knight.icfj.org

Uncovering the Secrets of the Brutal Pol Pot Regime

As a child, Thet Sambath lost his parents and his brother to the brutal regime of Pol Pot. It was a tragedy he shared with countless other Cambodians across their small country – the survivors of a genocide with more than one million deaths through political executions, starvation and disease. 

On a mission to grasp murder on that scale, Sambath spent a decade tracking down and winning the confidence of the Khmer Rouge’s No. 2 man, Nuon Chea, living as a free man near the border with Thailand. He used the talents he had developed in his day job as an investigative reporter regularly breaking stories of scandal and corruption, first at the Cambodian Daily and currently at the Phnom Penh Post.

Sambath conducted scores of interviews with the reticent Nuon Chea. Then, working with British filmmaker Rob Lemkin, he turned his reporting into the award-winning “Enemies of the People” documentary. The moving film was short-listed for an Oscar last year, when it also won the Special Jury Prize/World Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. The New York Times called it “inspiring – a testament to one man’s persistent search for the truth,” and The Wall Street Journal said it “may be one of the most important films about Cambodia ever made.”

Within Cambodia, its impact was close to home and personal. It will be used as evidence in the trial of Nuon Chea this year, and it brought Cambodians some understanding of that tragic time in their history.

Watch the judges discuss Thet Sambath's work:

I AM ALIVE IN LOS ANGELES!!

PraCh Ly & CORRUPTION
by: Mike Sonksen aka Mike the PoeT
June 17th, 2011

Kenya Prach was born in Cambodia in 1960. At a very young age he started learning a martial art called Khach-Kun-Boran, which is essentially a combination of different types of martial arts. His first martial arts teacher was a Buddhist monk named Lok Kru Thom, who was head of the temple Wat Atwea, aka Angko, in the city of Siem Reap. At age seven, Kenya began training with his uncle, a superior fighter, in the city of Battambank. His uncle believed in teaching only those who practiced martial arts for the betterment of the self and of the world, and that respect and love were the two most important truths.

Master Kenya Prach — the story of “The Black Stone Hands”

Kenya Prach was born in Cambodia in 1960. At a very young age he started learning a martial art called Khach-Kun-Boran, which is essentially a combination of different types of martial arts. His first martial arts teacher was a Buddhist monk named Lok Kru Thom, who was head of the temple Wat Atwea, aka Angko, in the city of Siem Reap. At age seven, Kenya began training with his uncle, a superior fighter, in the city of Battambank. His uncle believed in teaching only those who practiced martial arts for the betterment of the self and of the world, and that respect and love were the two most important truths.

Kenya entered his first Khmer kickboxing (Bokator) competition at the age of nine. Unfortunately, Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia shortly after he started competing. Khmer Rouge devastated his home country. In order to escape the killing fields, Kenya was forced to end his Bokator training.

After a long and grueling four years, Kenya finally managed to escape to Surin of Thailand, where he began training and participating in both gloved and barehanded competitions. He entered Muay Thai kickboxing competitions in Thailand at the age of fifteen. Kenya demonstrated his skill in local bars, small entertainment sporting events, and holiday celebration events. He entered fights in almost all cities in Northern Thailand, including Chiang Mai, Buriram, Krabi, and Surin, and he eventually became the youngest local Muay Thai champion after an extensive 152 fights. Because he delivered such powerful punches, local people gave him the nickname “The Black Stone Hands.”

During his 20 years of teaching in the United States, Master Prach has had over 1,000 students, many of whom have become champions in Muay Thai, boxing, Jujitsu, and Taekwondo. He is currently teaching in San Francisco.

Filmmaker Daron Ker's earliest childhood remembrances come from the three torturous years he spent in a malaria-ridden concentration camp in the center of Cambodia's killing fields.

His next, more pleasant memories are of watching movies projected on a tattered bedsheet in a refugee camp just across the Thai border.

"The one film that I really loved was 'Spartacus,'" Ker says enthusiastically. "It's weird, because I didn't understand anything. But it was the most powerful thing I had ever seen."

So powerful it fueled a circuitous journey to the United States, through film school and, after a nearly 30-year absence, back to his estranged homeland to direct his first full-length documentary, "Rice Field of Dreams," which has its world premiere locally this week.

(click here or pic to read full LA Times story on Daron Ker )

Cambodian Writers in Spotlight for US Literary Festival
Im Sothearith, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC  Monday, 21 March 2011

A group of Cambodian writers were the focus of a four-day literary festival at a US university last week, with some saying that despite what they see as threats to their safety and economic woes, they’ll continue their work.

Poets, playwrights, musicians and novelists all had a chance to participate in a number of discussions at Brown University, in Providence, R.I., providing a rare glimpse into Cambodia’s oft-ignored literary world.

“If we are born a lotus, we cannot become something else,” said Tararith Kho, a 38-year-old Cambodian who is a fellow at Brown’s International Writers Project this year. “It is our nature. I think I am not the one who must face the dangers of this profession, for I don’t have weapons. I don’t commit robberies. I’m just a writer. I write about the social problems I see.” *- click pic to read full story

link : KHMER Version w/ Audio interview

intro- movie soundbite: Thet Sambath
“My project is to find out why so  many people died in the Killing Fields.”
cut/ “my work is very dangerous !”

(verse.1.)
So he packed his bags, sad but smiles.
Hugs his wife and kisses his child.
Not sure when he’ll be back, gone for awhile,
Where to? Into the wild.
Lifestyle can lose his wife,
Dangerous, can lose his life.
Focused, never losing sight,
Through the darkness of days, twilight of night.
Got to the farmland, and the rice paddies.
They showed him the ditches where they dumped the bodies.
Decomposing corpses make the water bubbly,
No remorse, just seeking sympathy.
Descriptions so chilling, so vividly raw,......

(click picture to listen to song and read full lyrics )