Cambodian to held its first international film festival

Cinema in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 1993 by Meredith

PHNOM PENH, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) — Cambodia will launch its first international film festival this year to promote the country’s fledgling film industry, local media reported on Friday.

That was the message from government and industry officials on Thursday while announcing the launch of Cambodia’s first government-sponsored international film festival.

The festival will be held on the third week of October, the Chinese language newspaper Jian Hua Daily quoted Som Sokun, secretary of state for the Ministry of Culture, as saying.

The event will feature 30-40 films from Cambodia, other Asian countries and Europe, Som Sokun said. In addition to help promote Cambodia’s culture, the festival will also help attract international filmmakers, movie stars and directors to shoot movies in Cambodia, he added.

While most of the films will come from abroad, said Miriam Arthur, chief executive officer of Kmy Films, “the goal is to have the film makers come with their films so we can have them talk with the Khmer filmmakers.”

If Cambodia’s fledgling film industry wants to compete on the world stage, it will need more help from abroad, organizers said.

The Ministry of Culture launched the CFC (the Cambodian Film Commission) last June with funding from the French Agency for Development to attract foreign film productions to Cambodia and develop the local movie industry.

Som Sokun, meanwhile, urged local filmmakers to move beyond the current glut of popular “ghost” slasher movies in local cinemas. He also said that the govenment should streamline the overly bureaucratic permitting process faced by film crew.

Source: Xinhua