Rithy Panh

French-Cambodian film director Rithy Panh is a graduate of Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC). Early in his career, he received numerous awards for his documentaries and in 1994 went on to direct his first fiction film, Neak Srê (Rice People), which was entered in the main competition at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film, One Evening After the War, premièred in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Festival. His documentary The Missing Picture represented Cambodia at the 2014 Academy Awards, in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

This film project arose from the idea that it is impossible to eradicate a human being without leaving any trace: every wall, every object, every plot of land has a story to tell. Meeting hibakusha (survivors of the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and listening to their stories – stories that reminded him of his own past and his own lived experience – inspired Rithy Panh to bring their accounts together in the form of pictures, words and expressions, intended to bear witness to this attempt to destroy not only humans, but their very being. Yet real, tangible traces remain: even nature speaks: some plants become monstrous while others resist and tend wounds.