By KEVIN HOWE
Herald Staff Writer
Posted: 03/26/2012
"Carmel to Cambodia," a half-hour documentary produced and directed by television anchor Erin Clark, will be screened at a gala Saturday at Clint Eastwood's Tehama Golf Club.
The documentary carries a hopeful message of freeing up land for farming that had been literally sown with seeds of death — explosive land mines buried nearly the entire length of Cambodia's border with Thailand. The mines are still maiming and killing 30 years after they were planted.
"Carmel to Cambodia" was filmed last year in Cambodia to record the work of Freedom Fields USA, an organization formed in 2002 by members of a women's book club who raised funds and, working with the international HALO Trust, have been involved for 10 years in removing land mines from Cambodia.
The HALO Trust, based in the United States and Great Britain, is a nongovernmental organization that specializes in the removal of the hazardous debris of war in Asia, Africa and Europe.
"Carmel to Cambodia" shows a country of lush jungles, busy dirt highways, vibrant markets, smiling kids in school — and an incredible number of amputees maimed by land mines and getting around on makeshift wooden legs and wheelchairs.
Mine removal technicians wearing protective gear probe the soil for buried explosives, many of them made of plastic and invisible to metal detectors. Fields are dotted with red warning stakes and signs.
The documentary was first shown in October at the Carmel Film Festival,
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Clark said, and Freedom Fields plans to use it as an educational film and during fundraising events.
It was filmed over five days in Cambodia in 2009, but editing and cutting took months, she said.
"Part of the challenge is to shoot enough and get enough" during such a short stay, Clark said. "We didn't know what we'd get when we got there, we were dealing with languages, translators, and it's quite a traveling distance as well."
About three days were spent along the mine-infested border area, she said, which is reached by four-wheel-drive vehicles over dirt roads.
Freedom Fields co-founder Mia Hamwey said approximately 2 million land mines — 85 percent of those planted in Cambodia — were sown in the K-5 belt, so named because it passes through the five provinces of Kiemrieng District in western Cambodia.
The mines were buried along the border to hem in Khmer Rouge soldiers after the Vietnamese army drove them out of Cambodia into Thailand. Removing them costs about $100 per mine.
At one time, she said, toddlers were tethered by ropes to stakes driven into the ground until they were old enough to know not to wander into the mine fields.
The groups' mine clearance work, Hamwey said, has benefited hundreds of families by freeing up land for new homes, water wells and fields to cultivate for crops.
Tickets for Saturday's gala are still available, Clark said, and those interested in attending or in more information about Freedom Fields may visit www.ffusa.org.
The evening begins with wine tasting at 6 p.m. and dinner and wine pairing at 7 p.m.
Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com
Posted: 03/26/2012
"Carmel to Cambodia," a half-hour documentary produced and directed by television anchor Erin Clark, will be screened at a gala Saturday at Clint Eastwood's Tehama Golf Club.
The documentary carries a hopeful message of freeing up land for farming that had been literally sown with seeds of death — explosive land mines buried nearly the entire length of Cambodia's border with Thailand. The mines are still maiming and killing 30 years after they were planted.
"Carmel to Cambodia" was filmed last year in Cambodia to record the work of Freedom Fields USA, an organization formed in 2002 by members of a women's book club who raised funds and, working with the international HALO Trust, have been involved for 10 years in removing land mines from Cambodia.
The HALO Trust, based in the United States and Great Britain, is a nongovernmental organization that specializes in the removal of the hazardous debris of war in Asia, Africa and Europe.
"Carmel to Cambodia" shows a country of lush jungles, busy dirt highways, vibrant markets, smiling kids in school — and an incredible number of amputees maimed by land mines and getting around on makeshift wooden legs and wheelchairs.
Mine removal technicians wearing protective gear probe the soil for buried explosives, many of them made of plastic and invisible to metal detectors. Fields are dotted with red warning stakes and signs.
The documentary was first shown in October at the Carmel Film Festival,
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Clark said, and Freedom Fields plans to use it as an educational film and during fundraising events.
It was filmed over five days in Cambodia in 2009, but editing and cutting took months, she said.
"Part of the challenge is to shoot enough and get enough" during such a short stay, Clark said. "We didn't know what we'd get when we got there, we were dealing with languages, translators, and it's quite a traveling distance as well."
About three days were spent along the mine-infested border area, she said, which is reached by four-wheel-drive vehicles over dirt roads.
Freedom Fields co-founder Mia Hamwey said approximately 2 million land mines — 85 percent of those planted in Cambodia — were sown in the K-5 belt, so named because it passes through the five provinces of Kiemrieng District in western Cambodia.
The mines were buried along the border to hem in Khmer Rouge soldiers after the Vietnamese army drove them out of Cambodia into Thailand. Removing them costs about $100 per mine.
At one time, she said, toddlers were tethered by ropes to stakes driven into the ground until they were old enough to know not to wander into the mine fields.
The groups' mine clearance work, Hamwey said, has benefited hundreds of families by freeing up land for new homes, water wells and fields to cultivate for crops.
Tickets for Saturday's gala are still available, Clark said, and those interested in attending or in more information about Freedom Fields may visit www.ffusa.org.
The evening begins with wine tasting at 6 p.m. and dinner and wine pairing at 7 p.m.
Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com
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