SCARS OF CAMBODIA

It is 5 am. We are in a small fish market in Cambodia. We follow Tut, a 50 year old fisherman, on his way back to his pilotis house. Tut changes clothes, smokes a cigarette, absent. Then he writes with water, on his wooden terrace, the date when he was imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge régime. He was 15.

 

Amongst daily life scenes, Tut will show us, no, will be miming, the tortures he underwent: how his little finger was cut, blows, the scar on his thigh, tortures made most oftenly with everyday tools : a rope, a plastic bag, a knife, pliers...

 

At the end of his long and sillent testimony, the night is still dark. Tut dresses up to go to work. His boat floats along the river. When he arrives to the fish market, Tut finds a way through the fishermen boats to start a new day.

ALEXANDRE LIEBERT

 

Alexandre’s first film was shot in Super8, VINGT DONT QUATRE BIS. Self educated in cinéma, he explores all techniques, special effects, animated films. He writes, shoots, directs, edits, does everything from A to Z. First attracted by fiction, he directs a first short CHIMERE (3 festival sélections), then AE [EUDANL’AH] (12 festival selections and 5 awards). In 2011, on a trip to India, he discovers the documentary techniques. He comes back to France full of images for a still-to-be finished project on the town of Pushkar, SAINTE-DROGUE ET SON CHAMEAU. In 2012, he travels to Cambodia with the French photographer Emilie Arfeuil to direct his first documentary, SCARS OF CAMBODIA, the portrait of a Cambodian fisherman who was imprisoned and tortured by the Khmer Rouge regime.

 

• Clermont-ferrand Film Festival, France 2014 — Nikon award for best cinematography & SACEM award for best original music
• Festival des films du monde in Montréal, Canada 2014
• Festival Partie de campagne, France 2014
• Belo Horizonte international film festival, Brazil 2014
• Festival de documentaire de Mexico city, Mexico 2014

 

Short Competition 2015