Bophana Production

A 5-year-old girl embarks on a harrowing quest for survival amid the sudden rise and terrifying reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Based on the true story of Benjamin Prufer and Sreykeo Solvan. The unexpected and uncertain love story of Sreykeo, a 21 year old bar girl in Phnom Penh and Ben, a young German student traveling to Cambodia on a post graduation summer trip. When Ben returns home to Germany he discovers that Sreyko is sick and he takes on the responsibility to save her. On the way he discovers a world where not everyone is dealt the same cards and where motivations are not always pure.

Two decades after forging an unlikely alliance in Pol Pot's Cambodia, a French ethnologist and a former Khmer Rouge official meet again after the latter is arrested for crimes against humanity.

Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.

The film traces modern-day slavery in Cambodia by disclosing the fate of this young woman and following, in parallel, the daily lives of two human traffickers, a local recruiter and the head of an agency. Cambodian people call these traffickers Mey Kechol: The Storm Makers.

Under the Khmer Rouge regime, Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, directed the M13 prison for four years, before becoming the head of S21, the terrifying death machine that eliminated Khmer Rouge opponents. Some 12,280 Cambodians met their deaths here. In July 2010, Duch was the first Khmer leader to appear before an international court, which sentenced him to 35 years in prison. He appealed the sentence. While Duch waited for his new trial, Rithy Panh questioned him in depth.

Over three million Cambodians died in the genocide between 1975 and 1979. The Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror also decimated a homegrown film industry that had flourished since 1960: movie theaters were bombed, film prints were destroyed and artists were executed. In Golden Slumbers, French-Cambodian filmmaker Davy Chou mourns this loss of lives and culture, but balances the somber material with a playfulness that honors the lush melodramas and mythic adventures of the glory years.