Rithy Panh was born in 1964 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At the age of 11, like all Cambodians, he was interned in Khmer rouge camps for rehabilitation through labour. Four years later, in 1979, he managed to escape to the Mairut refugee camp in Thailand. A year later, he moved to France, and in 1985 entered the IDHEC film school. He has dedicated most of his films to his native country, traumatised by massacres of extreme violence – 2 million Cambodians, or one in four, exterminated in four years. “Without this war, I would never have become a filmmaker. I bear witness to give back to the dead what the Khmer Rouge stole from them. I am a passer of memory in debt to those who have disappeared.”
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
