A Change of Guard

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Friday 25 January 2013

February DocHouse Programme Announced

Year-round documentary festival DocHouse have announced their programme for February, bringing four compelling and revealing films to London’s cinemas.
Red Wedding
Red Wedding: “At least 250,000 Cambodian women were forced to marry Khmer Rouge soldiers.”
Thursday 7th February sees a double bill at the Rich Mix Cinema of two films, one recent and one classic, exploring the impact of the Khmer Rouge’s reign in Cambodia. Year Zero: The Silent Death Of Cambodia was filmed inside Cambodia in 1979, the year the Khmer Rouge were overthrown, and was the first piece of Western journalism to fully reveal the devastation wreaked upon the country. Director John Pilger lays bare the entire chain of events, from the removal of King Norodom Sihanouk to ensuing famine and genocide under the regime. A rare chance to see this poignant and sobering portrait of Cambodia’s recent history.
Red Wedding documents how, between 1975 and 1979, at least 250,000 Cambodian women were forced to marry Khmer Rouge soldiers they had never met in a concerted effort by the regime to increase the population. Sochan Pen was one of them. Aged 16, she was beaten and raped by her husband before managing to escape, albeit deeply scarred by the trauma of her experience. After 30 years of silence, Sochan is ready to file a complaint with the international tribunal set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders, and with quiet dignity she begins to demand answers from the regime which caused such agony to a country and its people. Year Zero begins at 8.00 pm; tickets are £7 (£5 concessions).
On Thursday 21st February at The Lexi Cinema, In My Mother’s Arms tells the story of Husham, who cares fiercely for a group of 32 young orphans in a dangerous district of Baghdad, some of whose parents have been killed, some who have run away, but all who have been abused and abandoned by the state.
When their landlord gives the group just two weeks to vacate the only house they have ever felt safe in, a panicked search for new shelter ensues. Fighting tirelessly to continue to build on the boys’ hopes, dreams and prospects while also keeping them from being reclaimed by the state, Husham crosses religious and racial divides to find help. The screening begins at 6.30 pm; tickets are £7.
High Tech, Low Life
High Tech, Low Life: “A fascinating portrait of news-gathering in the 21st Century.”
Finally, on Thursday 28th February another double bill takes place, this time in Riverside Studios. The first, High Tech, Low Life, introduces us to vegetable seller ‘Zola’ and bicycle-riding activist ‘Tiger Temple,’ two of China’s first Citizen Reporters. Using laptops, mobiles and digital cameras to bypass the strict codes of conventional Chinese media, the two risk political persecution to give first-hand, unmediated accounts of untold stories from around the country. However, with a 30 year age gap, their approaches differ considerably. 27-year-old Zola is on a coming-of-age journey from produce vendor to internet celebrity, making the most of sensational urban stories to increase his fame and future prospects. Meanwhile, Tiger Temple, an activist in his late 50s, is committed to understanding China’s tumultuous history, reporting on plights faced by farmers in the agricultural hinterland. The film is a fascinating portrait of news-gathering in the 21st Century, and also the story of two people fuelled by idealism, all the while struggling to reconcile an evolving sense of individualism, social responsibility and personal sacrifice.
This is followed by Who’s Afraid Of Ai Weiwei?, a 15-minute short that paints a portrait of China’s most famous international artist immediately before his principled and costly stand against the Beijing Olympics and the oppressive police state he claimed it represented. High Tech, Low Life begins at 7.15 pm; tickets are £8.50 (£7.50 concessions).

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