Director screens film on gambling addiction in [Long Beach's] Cambodian community

By Jennifer Nguyen
– Posted on May 14, 2013 
Posted in: Campus News, News

Dom Magwili, an Asian-American studies professor, participates in a discussion about the film Paulina at Cal State Fullerton on Monday. (Tim Worden / Daily Titan)

Director and screenplay writer Caylee So spoke about family, addiction and sacrifice—the themes of her film Paulina—at Cal State Fullerton on Monday.

So gave a lecture and presentation aimed at opening people’s eyes and giving them insight into the Cambodian gambling community and the personal battles that some individuals face directly and indirectly.

The event, at McCarthy Hall, was sponsored by the Asian-American Studies Program and hosted by Asian American studies professor Eliza Noh, Ph.D.

So was born in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1981 after her parents fled from Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. She and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 3 years old.

She later went on to earn her M.F.A. in film production at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

The film was shot in 10 days at seven different locations throughout Long Beach. In the end, about $30,000 was spent to make the movie possible, said So.

The film follows a 17-year-old girl living in the Cambodian community in Long Beach, struggling with her and her father’s gambling addictions.

As a result, her relationship with her older sister Sopheap, who had been looking after Paulina since their mother passed away, gradually becomes strained.

In the end, Paulina is forced to either continue living the troubled life she was leading, or leave it all behind.

According to Frank Martinez, editor of Paulina, the film took about two months to edit.

For Martinez, it was a culture shock working on the film because he was not too familiar with the Cambodian community.

“I was so in love with a lot of the community stuff that I … (wanted) to show people this,” Martinez said. “For me, it was an experience of discovering a community. A lot of it was hard because I don’t speak the language.”

Due to the subject of the film, Paulina had resulted in numerous talks and debates over whether or not this film put the Cambodian community in a negative light, according to So.

She said it has left some people wondering why she focused on a negative side of the community.

So went on to discuss an older Cambodian woman who, after seeing the film, felt “ashamed” to be Cambodian.

“There are people who think this was a very good thing for the community, because now we get to talk about it openly,” she said.

Dom Magwili, an Asian-American studies professor, said the film was “very insightful,” and that he is considering on adding Paulina into his class syllabus for the students to watch.

“I have a point of view of Asian- American film. It perpetuates stories,” said Magwili. “The whole reason we have Asian-American studies, I think, is to perpetuate our stories. Sometimes we just don’t exist in the general scheme of things.”

So recently earned the Linda Mabalot New Directors/New Visions Award for her film Paulina at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

This was the first time the film was screened in an actual classroom.

“We have taken Paulina on tour, in which we have gone to universities and shown it to a smaller crowd, not a classroom setting but more like an event,” said So. “So we have been to Stockton, Sacramento (and) the University of the Pacific.”