Step it up: Cambodia’s International Women’s Day Film Festival

Spotlighting Cambodian women’s successes, challenges and life stories, UN Women in Cambodia will celebrate a three day film festival to mark International Women’s Day 2016. 

Celebrated yearly on the 8th of March, International Women’s Day marks a global day to recognize the challenges, solicit change, and to celebrate women’s empowerment and achievements worldwide.

This year, following the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, UN Women Cambodia is proud to host a three day Film Festival for International Women’s day. In line with this year’s theme, “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality,” female Cambodian film-makers are stepping it up to champion women’s involvement in the arts. The hand-selected films will shed light upon the diverse pathways, struggles, triumphs and achievements of women living in Cambodia.

The festival, which will be held from the 8th to the 10th of March at Meta House, will have an exciting and diverse programme. Offering a glimpse into a Cambodia viewed through a gendered lens, the selected movies will address sexual abuse, trafficking, gender based violence, forced marriages and the importance of young women’s empowerment. The film screenings will be accompanied by remarks and interactive debates from prominent speakers and directors.

Our main movie highlights include three long films:

“The Last Reel” (Sotho Kulikar)
A lost film, buried beneath Cambodia’s killing fields, reveals different versions of the truth. “The Last Reel” is a contemporary story about love, family, the ghosts of Cambodia’s past, and the inherent link between the prior and the present.

“Red Wedding” (Chan Lyda & Guillaume Suon)
Between 1975 and 1979, at least 250,000 Cambodian women were forced into marriages by the Khmer Rouge. Sochan was one of them. At the age of 16, she was forced to marry a soldier who raped her. After 30 years of silence, Sochan decided to bring her case to the international tribunal set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders. Red Wedding is the story of a survivor who pits her humanity against an ideology and a system designed to annihilate people like her.

“Cambodia – The Virginity Trade” (Matthew Watson)
The compelling and utterly alarming account of the lives of girls and women affected by the virginity trade that exists in Cambodia today. Many Asian men believe that obtaining a virgin girl for sex will grant them extra health and luck. Subsequently, there is a huge demand for young Cambodian girls, and the demand feeds the country's sex industry. 'Cambodia: The Virginity Trade' documents all sides of this nightmarish story of Cambodian girls in crisis

When:

March 8th: 7pm – 9.30pm
March 9th: 6.30pm – 9pm
March 10th: 6.30pm – 9pm

Where:

Meta House
37 Samdach Sothearos Blvd, Phnom Penh

Screening Programme

Click here to download printed version of the programme