Davy Chou is a Cambodian French director and producer born in 1983, based in Phnom Penh.
In 2009, Davy Chou created a one-year filmmaking workshop in Phnom Penh, gathering 60 students from 4 different schools, which later led to the creation of the film collective Kon Khmer Koun Khmer.
Grandson of pioneer Cambodian producer Van Chann, in 2011 Davy Chou directed the feature-length documentary Golden Slumbers, which explores the loss of memory of the 1960s heydays of Cambodian cinema, before its destruction by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. The film was selected at Forum Berlinale and numerous film festivals.
In 2014, his short film Cambodia 2099 was selected at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, followed in 2016 by his Cambodia-set feature debut, Diamond Island, which was awarded the SACD Prize at Cannes’ Critics’ Week. He is the second Cambodian director in history, after The Missing Picture-director Rithy Panh, to have presented his work at Cannes. The film also won the Golden Gateway Award for Best Film at Mumbai International Film Festival, the Tiger Jury Award at Cinemasia Amsterdam and the Bayard for Best First Fiction Film at Namur International Film Festival. In the US, it was shown at New Directors/New Films and theatrically released at MoMA.
Davy Chou’s second feature, Korea-set Return to Seoul, was selected at Un Certain Regard in Cannes International Film Festival Official Selection in 2022. The film has been selected at Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival.
In parallel with his directing efforts, Davy Chou co-founded the Cambodian production company Anti-Archive in 2014, which aims to support the emergence of a new generation of Cambodian filmmakers. As a producer, he has produced the works of Cambodian director Kavich Neang, including the feature-length documentary Last Night I Saw You Smiling (Netpac Award at Rotterdam Film Festival 2019) and the feature White Building (Best Actor Award at Orizzonti Venice Film Festival 2021). He also line produced Cambodia-set international production Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle by Arthur Harari, which opened Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2021. Davy Chou has initiated the Echoes From Tomorrow project, which supports first-time female Cambodian directors to make their first short films. In 2019, the LA Times published an article on Anti-Archive, calling it “a small Cambodian production house that is reviving independent cinema in a country where artistic voices have often been sidelined by turbulent politics”.
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