Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Ratanakiri on the Big Screen in Phnom Penh

ICSO- Forest Mountain Voices films will be screened in Phnom Penh on the 23rd and 24th
of March at two separate public events.
 
1.Freedom Day Celebration
Premiere: Away from home
(Save the Children Australia/ ICSO- Forest Mountain Voicesfilm)
Hun Sen Park, Phnom Penh
Friday March 23rd 6pm-8pm

To commemorate Freedom Day, Save the Children Australia, World Vision and the British Embassy are
staging an outdoor multi-media event for the general public in Hun Sen Park, Phnom Penh. The Save the
Children and ICSO- Forest Mountain Voices co-production Away from home will be premiered and Forest
Mountain Voices film-makers Nong Sam Oeung, Om Hongkiry and actor Yourng Dalin, as well as others
from this Ratanakiri media project will be there to launch the film at this event.
Away from home, funded by Save the Children Australia and the Asian Development Bank, is a docudrama
of one woman's experience of trafficking and prostitution, and one young man's experience of
labour exploitation. Told from the perspective of a young Jarai girl, and a young Kreung man, the story is
conveyed through dramatizations and interviews. This is a film has been specifically produced for
indigenous communities in Ratanakiri and is available in Tampeun, Jarai and Kreung.
 
2.CineMekong Film Festival
Saturday March 24th 10am
French Cultural Centre
For the first time at Cambodia's premiere annual film event, indigenous films, written directed and
produced by indigenous people, will be screened as part of the program.
Screening at the festival
 
Community Forests
(5'30'' Dir. Yourng Dalin) Tong Krapoo Village is a Kreung indigenous community that has rallied
together to protect their forests. The village's elders explain in their own words their people's strategies
to preserve the precious natural resources essential for the future of their community.
 
Lady from La Po
(6'00 Dir. Yourng Dalin) A Tampeun woman talks about land, women and livelihoods in her village in
Yeak Loam Commune. Inn, is a renowned weaver in her community producing the traditional Tampeun
cloth that is sold to the tourists who visit the beautiful Yeak Loam Lake. Inn reflects on the many changes
that have occurred in her community, and the challenges faced by Tampeun people to maintain their
culture.
 
A woman's work in one day
(10' Dir Bech Mom) A Tampeun woman from Loan Village talks us through her everyday life. We see her
work on the land from dawn till dusk to provide basic food, water and shelter for her family. The story of
her daily struggles is an intimate insight into the lives of indigenous women in Ratanakiri.
 
A lady from Krowla village
(3'05 Dir Kennuth Youen) Deng Sovann, a Kreung woman from Krowla Village, discusses her culture,
livelihood, and her village's reliance on land and forests. Krowla village is a strong community that
values and protects the natural resources and the Kreung traditions which ensure the survival of their
lifestyle for future generations.
 
Rice field ceremony
(10'00'' Dir. Om Hong Kiry) Every year after harvesting the rice, Tampeun communities celebrate with a
ceremony. The rice field ceremony brings the community together, to make a sacrifice to the spirits of
the rice field for the harvest. Here captured on video for the first time, young indigenous filmmaker Om
Hong Kiry shows his own community preparing and celebrating a ceremony that reflects the uniqueness
of Tampeun culture. It is a document of a traditional belief system for future generations of Tampeun
people.
 
Forest Mountain Voices is a project developed in 2005 and 2006, as part of Community
Forestry International's indigenous peoples program in Ratanakiri. In January 2007, that
program localized to a new Cambodian NGO, Indigenous Community Support
Organisation (ICSO). ICSO is dedicated to supporting indigenous communities in
protection of their rights and managing their own development.
 
The Forest Mountain Voices project operates under the guidance of a community advisory
group. The Advisory Group consists of community people from most districts of
Ratanakiri. They guide the FMV indigenous media makers to produce media about
indigenous culture and issues. The current staff of the FMV unit are indigenous Tampuen,
Jarai, Kreung and Phnong.
 
For more information please contact:
FMV Technical Advisor
Jocelyn Pederick
012 180 2910
jocelynp[via]camintel[dot]com
FMV Coordinator Sovann Hien
fmv-icso[via]online[dot]com[dot]kh

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.