Filmmaker Hopes to Bring Justice in Acid Attack

Skye Fitzgerald, whose recent documentary, “Finding Face,” chronicles the life of acid attack victim Tat Marina, hopes support built from the film will go toward punishing the perpetrators and finding justice for his subject.

“One of our strategies with releasing the film here in the United States is to garner more support,” Fitzgerald told VOA Khmer in Washington, where he is on a tour to promote the film.

He had come to the capital, he said, “to make sure that legislators, politicians, and folks from the human rights community have a chance to access the film, learn about Tat Marina’s story, and hopefully get more fully engaged with the issues the film raises.”

Tat Marina, a young karaoke singer who was severely disfigured and nearly killed when she was doused with acid at a market in Phnom Penh in 1999, is expected to speak at the film’s launch in Washington, as she did when it showed in Portland, Ore.

Fitzgerald has also begun sending DVDs by request to Cambodia and has encouraged the distribution of copies.

“It’s not been a project that we engaged with for financial gains necessarily,” he said, “but it is a project that we couldn’t say no to.

“It was one that we felt very powerfully about, because of the nature of the story, because we knew that Marina hadn’t had a chance before to seek out any justice for herself or the family,” he said. “And so we felt very dedicated to making sure we took our resources and used them to help her and the family to tell the story.”

The film has invoked anger and sympathy in its viewers so far, from Americans and Cambodians alike. (The wife of a senior official is suspected in the attack, but no arrests have ever been made.)

“Through what I’ve heard it is injustice for her, and I want to personally see her pictures, and want to know how good the story is,” Keo Ang, a market vendor in Svay Rieng province, told VOA Khmer by phone. “Therefore I want a DVD, to show it to my family and some people so that they are able to understand more about her life.” source: VOA news

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Bicyclist’s freewheeling feast

Food always tastes better when you’re hungry, says Tom Kevill-Davies, who is sampling hot pots, herbs and fish on his two-wheeled trek up the Mekong.

Deep in the Ecuadorian jungle, a scruffy Londoner manages to procure passage for a nine-day journey that will carry him and his bicycle down the Amazon River.

But his delight begins to dissipate when he sees his travelling companions: buffalos, pigs, chickens, ducks and other animals. The livestock is crammed below deck, next to the kitchen, while the cyclist joins the humans above.

When the rains come, the water floods the lower deck, causing the animal droppings to rise to the surface and ooze up through the floor planks of the rickety structure.

Atop the boat, people stand in pools of dung as the standard meal is dealt out: a bowl of soup made from riverwater and whichever hapless animal lay within reach of the cook.

“After two bites, my body rebelled,” the cyclist recalls.

Tom Kevill-Davies, 31, ranks this Amazonian culinary experience among his worst ever – and he has plenty to choose from. Disenchanted with his life at a London advertising firm, he hopped on his bike six years ago and sped off in pursuit of the most delicious meal he could find.

After spending two and half years biking from New York to California and on to Brazil, Kevill-Davies put his adventures to paper in The Hungry Cyclist, combining the excitement of biking with the thrill of discovering tasty food inunexpected locales.

This marriage of cycling and eating takes its strength not only from a love of food and biking, but also from the simple tenet that food will taste better to a ravenous cyclist.

Six weeks into a six-month journey around the Mekong region, Kevill-Davies is cycling and eating his way through Southeast Asia, recording recipes where he can, and relying on online translations to assist him.

“I’m interested in the context of food: why people are eating what they’re eating, the herbs, the hot pots, the use of fish in the area around the Mekong,” he said.

Before pushing off to explore Kampot and Kep, the hungry cyclist made the most of Phnom Penh’s delights throughout the Water Festival.

Kevill-Davies raved about the street food – the coconut soups, the “crunchy and chewy” tarantulas and snakes – and about the ambience of the festival, which he rated as one of the best experiences of his life.

Life on the road
But cycling around Southeast Asia is not without its obstacles. Throughout southern Vietnam he had to contend with police and government officials forbidding him to hang his hammock in some areas. With rural families torn between offering him hospitality and breaking the law, he would often be given a meal and sent on his way.

Heat, dehydration, sunburn, vicious dogs, eye infections from dusty roads and culinary disasters are daily hazards.

“I’m not making this sound good at all, am I?” he joked.

Then there is the loneliness. Up at 6am for a solo cycle until noon, a rest and a meal during the midday heat, and then back on the saddle until nightfall, when he sets up camp or finds a guesthouse.

Sometimes he will go weeks without conversation beyond the excited yelps of “Hello! Hello!” from village children.

“But,” he warned, “if you think cycling is lonely, writing a book is really lonely.”

Kevill-Davies described his 10-month writing odyssey as “mentally exhausting”, with days spent at a local London library among secondary school students cramming for exams and chomping on crisps. His sleep was destroyed by middle-of-the-night urges to scribble ideas down.

For now at least, Kevill-Davies is free of the stresses of book writing and is chronicling his journey – complete with photos, videos and recipes – on his blog: thehungrycyclist.com.

He welcomes suggestions of places to eat and visit as he attempts to make his way up the Mekong from Vietnam through Cambodia, Laos and China to the river’s source in Tibet.

And will this latest adventure ever be available in paperback?

“We’ll see,” he said. “First I’ve got to find out how it ends.” source: the phnom penh post

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Jackie Chan to talk peace in Cambodia

Hong Kong-based actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur and singer Jackie Chan will visit Phnom Penh tomorrow to deliver a keynote address in the Peace Foundation’s “Bridges” event series.

Chan’s talk, titled “Arts and culture as a pathway towards peace”, is scheduled to be held at 2pm Wednesday, at the University of Cambodia. For information and free seat reservations phone 023 993 275 or email info@uc.edu.kh This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.

You need JavaScript enabled to view it. source: the phnom penh post

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Celebrating and saving sights and sounds

Once spoken by indigenous minorities, the S’aoch language is now spoken fluently by only 10 people in Cambodia.
Jean-Michel Fillipi, who studied and recorded the language for preservation, is to hold a conference on the vanishing language tomorrow at the Bophana Centre.

S’aoch is one example of the ephemeral heritage which will be celebrated by the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage.

Musicians from the Cham and Kroeung minorities will also perform during the day. Fillipi’s work adds to Bophana’s Hanuman database, which holds recordings from sources as diverse as Phnom Penh street singers to Nixon’s phone calls about America’s bombing of Indochina. source: the phnom penh post

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Shinta Mani hotel prepares for a major Bill Bensley makeover

Bill Bensley, the Thai-based architect and designer who Time magazine described as the “king of exotic luxury resorts”, will soon begin the much-vaunted makeover of Shinta Mani Hotel.

The boutique hotel will close in April-May next year for the remodel, and ultimately re-emerge as a hotel almost twice the size – the number of rooms increasing from 18 to 35.

Shinta Mani, imbued with a tradition of hip philanthropy, also doubles as an institute of hospitality, providing non-fee-paying hotel education to underprivileged Cambodians. This programme is funded by hotel profits, and next year students will also benefit from the revamp.

General manager Chitra Vincent said the students “will have a proper classroom, a library with books, and computers with training software, so that will be new for us.”

Training courses usually begin on January 1 each year, but because of the renovations, this will be moved forward to an as yet unspecified date, with selection of new students to finish by December 1.

Vincent said 28 training positions are available and around 200 application forms have been distributed.

The hotel targets five main disadvantaged groups: orphans, students from single parent families, low income families, large families, and students with disabilities who normally face difficulties getting a job.

Chitra Vincent said, “We had someone in the culinary class who was blind in one eye. We offer completely free training, give rice to the family once a week and give trainees a small allowance every month.” source: the phnom penh post

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