IN-PERSON: Prague – Section A

Abstract

In Southeast Asia, the histories of the moving image were never uniform. The aggressive nationalism that surfaced after the colonial period tip-toed on the tension of geopolitics. Countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have well-written and documented histories on screens. There is comparatively less historical literature on the early screen histories of Brunei, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste, especially in the English language. This paper documents the gap left in the archives of the Cambodia on screen due to the Indochina wars that left Southeast Asia entangled in decades of political instability. Besides confrontations between regional guerrilla forces and state governments, distant powers such as the United States, France, and China were supporting the civil wars. Yet at the same time, providing loans, manpower, and equipment to rebuild schools, hospitals, roads, and such to create a circular debt to fit their economic and political image. Not much film documentation during this period survived. This presentation will give a less visible perspective on the Cambodian War through the histories of regional film screenings. The Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center is one of the more important efforts in consolidating historic environments that had been violently erased throughout the Cambodian war. Not only do they screen war films, but they also provided ameliorative workshops in relation to the subject. How does the activated archive enable a space to confront erased heritage? This exploration of postcolonial resolutions from civic struggle will problematise how institutional archives negotiate remediated memories today.