Home BREAKING NEWS Angelina Jolie unveils Khmer Rouge film with screening in Angkor Wat

Angelina Jolie unveils Khmer Rouge film with screening in Angkor Wat

February 20, 2017

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By – Shyamal Sinha

The moern name, Angkor Wat, means “Temple City” or “City of Temples” in Khmer; Angkor, meaning “city” or “capital city”, is a vernacular form of the word nokor (នគរ), which comes from the Sanskrit word nagara (Devanāgarī: नगर). Wat is the Khmer word for “temple grounds”, also derived from Sanskrit vāṭa (Devanāgarī: वाट), meaning “enclosure”.

The original name of the temple was Vrah Viṣṇuloka (Sanskrit) or Brah Bisnulōk (Local variant) which means the sacred dwelling of Vishnu

Angelina Jolie unveiled her new film on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era on Saturday at the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, a country the star shares a deep affinity with through her adopted son Maddox.

Cambodia’s king and survivors of the communist regime were among some 1,500 people invited to the debut screening of First They Killed My Father, directed by Jolie and based on the memoirs of Loung Ung.

Hollywood star Angelina Jolie (C) speaks to media during a press confernce at a hotel in Siem Reap on February 18, 2017.
Angelina Jolie will unveil her new film on the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era at the ancient Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia, a country the star shares a deep affinity with through her adopted son Maddox. / AFP PHOTO / TANG CHHIN SOTHY

Loung Ung was five years old when Khmer Rouge troops, led by Pol Pot, swept into Phnom Penh plunging her family into a harrowing ordeal that saw them sent to brutal labour camps before her eventual escape to the United States.

In its quest for an agrarian Marxist utopia, the regime killed up to two million Cambodians between 1975-79 through execution, starvation and overwork.

It is the second film by Jolie to tackle the subject of genocide – in 2011 she made a film about the Bosnian conflict featuring mostly local actors.

epa05801085 US director-actress Angelina Jolie (L), walks with Loung Ung (R), Cambodian-born American human-rights activist and lecturer, as they attend a press conference at a hotel in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, 18 February 2017. Angelina Jolie will give a free public screening of her new film ‘First They Killed My Father’ about the war time experiences of Cambodian Loung Un as a young child in Cambodia. The movie is to be released on the Internet TV network Netflix. EPA/MAK REMISSA

But her latest silver screen offering is more personal.

Jolie adopted her first child Maddox from an orphanage in Cambodia’s western Battambang province in 2002 and she has been given Cambodian citizenship.

The Hollywood star previously said it was Maddox who pushed her to make the film.

At a press conference in Siem Reap, Jolie described Cambodia as a “second home”, adding that she chose Loung Ung’s book because she wanted to tell the story of the Khmer Rouge era “through the eyes of a child”.

epa05801050 US director-actress Angelina Jolie arrives for a press conference at a hotel in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, 18 February 2017. Angelina Jolie will give a free public screening of her new film ‘First They Killed My Father’ about the war time experiences of Cambodian Loung Un as a young child in Cambodia. The movie is to be released on the Internet TV network Netflix. EPA/MAK REMISSA

It also brought her closer to her son, she said.

“I wanted to focus not just on the war but on the love of family and on the beauty of the country and in fact I wanted to understand what my son’s birth parents may have gone through. And I wanted to know him better and I wanted to know this country better,” she said.

Maddox is accompanying his mother on the trip and was seen visiting the Angkor temple complex on Friday.

In a tribute to those who survived the brutal regime, Jolie has pushed to ensure the film would be both made by Cambodians and accessible to them.

epa05801084 US director-actress Angelina Jolie (C-R), walks with Cambodian actress Sveng Socheata (C-L), during a press conference at a hotel in Siem Reap province, Cambodia, 18 February 2017. Angelina Jolie will give a free public screening of her new film ‘First They Killed My Father’ about the war time experiences of Cambodian Loung Un as a young child in Cambodia. The movie is to be released on the Internet TV network Netflix. EPA/MAK REMISSA

Almost the entire film is in the Khmer language while the cast members and much of the crew were local hires, including the two child protagonists.

The film is also co-produced by Rithy Panh, Cambodia’s most acclaimed filmmaker.

He lost almost all his immediate family during the Khmer Rouge years but went on to produce searing documentaries that helped break the silence surrounding the genocide.

Loung Ung, who Jolie described as a “family friend”, said that while the film centred on her family’s experience, her story would be familiar to all Cambodians.

“I view it as the story of all of us,” she told reporters.

Despite the prosecution of a few top Khmer Rouge cadres, the genocide continues to be a controversial subject.

Strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was a former regime cadre before he defected and has run the impoverished country for more than thirty years, is opposed to any new prosecutions of regime leaders.

But the Cambodian government has welcomed Jolie’s film so far.