A Change of Guard

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Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Judyth Piazza interviews Cambodian Filmmaker Daron Ker on The American Perspective


Published:September 13th, 2011
By Judyth Piazza CEO (Editor)
To listen to the audio at The Sop.

"The only way for me to connect to the world was to become a filmmaker," says Daron Ker (pictured). "And the only thing I can do is keep making movies." With his first two films earning praise from audiences, at first blush Ker might resemble any number of promising new filmmakers. He carries a film school degree and a deep respect for the films of Kubrick, Scorsese, and Coppola, and cares more about good storytelling than fame and fortune.

But a closer look reveals that Ker is anything but ordinary. First, there`s the subject matter of his two films, as different on the surface as one might imagine. "Rice Field of Dreams" documents the attempts of a Cambodian refugee with an Alabama accent named Joe Cook who returns to his country to establish a competitive baseball program, while "I Ride" introduces audience to the Fryed Brothers Band, a rock group that plays almost exclusively for motorcycle clubs and rallies, living a nomadic life on the road.

Both films continue to fascinate audiences and critics, and will be released this fall through FilmBuff/Cinetic Media. Then there`s Ker himself, a Cambodian-American who as a child was interned with his family during Pol Pot`s reign of terror in the 1970s (the basis for the Oscar-winning film "The Killing Fields"). It was there that Ker was first exposed to great filmmaking - he remembers Kubrick`s "Spartacus" being projected onto a white sheet to entertain the imprisoned refugees, and although he didn`t speak the language, the film`s powerful visuals made a deep impression on him. His family eventually emigrated to Southern California.

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