Cambodia has a proud history of filmmaking. During the golden age of Cambodian cinema in the 1960s, over 300 films were made in the Kingdom. I am the one who love watching movies so I am optimistic about the future of Cambodian cinema. Today, a new generation of Cambodian filmmakers is receiving well-deserved recognition for their tireless work. Earlier this year, Rithy Panh’s “The Missing Picture” was the first Cambodian film to be nominated for an Academy Award. In October, film director Sotho Kulikar received the Spirit of Asia Award at the prestigious Tokyo International Film Festival for her entry “The Last Reel,” which opened the 5th Annual Cambodia International Film Festival on December 5-102014.
“The Last Reel” is the first full-length independent film by Hanuman Films, a Cambodian film production company runs by Kulikar. Joining the film as executive producer was American Lloyd Levin, who first came to Cambodia to work on the “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” film. At Hanuman Films, they are working to raise Cambodia’s profile by bringing more international film productions to the country.
I think movies can give a voice to the past, and this is true for “The Last Reel,” which explores the legacy of civil war and the shadow it has cast over the next generation. Kulikar hopes her film “will play its part in a long overdue healing process in Cambodia, by encouraging generations old and young to talk more openly about the past.” I wish her dream would come true soon too.
Ms. Sotho Kulikar - Director's Message:
The Last Reel is a film about the remaking of a lost film, by a first-time woman director about a first-time woman director that suggest the process of making and watching films can reconcile the past and the present, victims and their tormentors, parents and children.
About Director:
Sotho Kulikar was Line Producer on Tomb Raider in 2000. Via her production company Hanuman Films she has produced many films and documentaries, including Ruin (Special Jury Prize, Venice 2013). The Last Reel is her directorial debut. Born in 1973, Kulikar grew up during the Khmer Rouge regime, and the subsequent turmoil and civil war.
Film Synopsis: When Sophoun’s father demands an arranged marriage she flees her imploding home and seeks refuge in a decrepit cinema. There, she is shocked to discover an incomplete 1970s melodrama, a film which starred her much loved but now desperately ill mother as a glamorous young woman. With the help of the cinema’s elderly projectionist Sophoun re-makes the missing last reel of the film. By premiering the film forty years late she hopes to remind her mother of a life she’d once lived and to mend the psychological scars that still haunt her.
Director/Producer: Sotho KulikarPlease have a watch of the trailers (Khmer & English version):
Screenplay/Producer: Ian Masters
Producer: Murray Pope
Executive Producer: Lloyd Levin, Sotho Tan, Nick Ray
Cinematographer: Bonnie Elliot
Editor: Katie Flaxman
Composer: Christopher Elves
Sound Designer: Brooke Tresize
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