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Kavich Neang

Kavich Neang (1987, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) graduated from the Asian Film Academy in 2013 after originally studying Music and Dance. In 2014, he co-founded the Cambodian production company Anti-Archive. Kavich has been part of Talents Tokyo, Visions du Reel’s Docs-in-Progress and Cannes Cinéfondation Residency. Since 2010, he has directed five short films.

Filmography

White Building (2021), Last Night I Saw You Smiling (2019), New Land Broken Road (2018), Goodbye Phnom Penh (2015), Three Wheels (2015), Where I Go (2013), A Scale Boy (2011)

Kavich Neang’s first film is a short documentary following Sory Chan, a 14-year-old boy who is living in Phnom Penh apart from his family. A student of Cambodian classical music, Sory lives with his mother’s friend after his mother fled a debt she couldn’t afford to pay back. Each evening after class, he carries a scale outside in a popular part of the city and asks people to weigh themselves for a small amount of money. In this urgent film, we witness Sory’s day in class, his nightly routine and a particularly difficult conversation with his mother who he meets on the street.

Run Time

17 mins
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Last Night I Saw You Smiling finds filmmaker Kavich Neang documenting the final days of the White Building. An architectural landmark in Phnom Penh built in the 1960s, the building was earmarked for destruction in 2017. Originally built as social housing for moderate income tenants, the White Building stood as witness to the history of the past 50 years in Cambodia. After the building (and city) became empty due to the Khmer Rouge’s brutal regime in the 1970s, tenants relocated to a building that came into increasing disrepair while simultaneously nurturing a community of artists, educators and neighbours. Neang films residents packing up their lives in the final week before moving out, conversing about their own personal histories and how they intertwine with the White Building and Cambodia at large.

Director

Countries

Run Time

77 mins

Year

2019
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