We Are the Fruits of the Forest

synopsis

The Bunong people, who inhabit the Mondulkiri highlands in eastern Cambodia, belong to an animist culture rooted in a close relationship with nature. Sacrificial rituals honouring the rice gods have always protected them from crop failure and catastrophe. With the arrival of capitalism, climate change and multinational corporations, a communal understanding of the forest and its gifts is disappearing. Growing and gathering rice, mangoes, cassava, coffee and honey are giving way to the sale of timber and rubber. Financial pressures draw farmers into a spiral of debt, where rituals and crafts yield to the extractive logic of money. Stereoscopic images of traditional rituals, colonised landscapes and identities reveal the depths of the abyss facing the Bunong – a people with little hope of a future of their own.

“We, the Bunong people, believe in dreams. They can be good or bad. The Bunong consider a good dream to be one in which they see themselves working in the fields, where they see clear water, or see themselves climbing rocks or flying. But when we see a naked person in a dream, trouble follows.”

biography

Rithy Panh (1964) is a Cambodian screenwriter and director. His work explores the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror in Cambodia, which claimed the lives of many of his family members. He fled to Thailand in 1979 and later studied in Paris. He has directed more than twenty fiction and documentary films. In 2006, he co-founded the Bophana Centre in Phnom Penh to preserve Cambodia’s film heritage.

film details

director:	Rithy Panh
producer:	Catherine Dussart
script:	Rithy Panh
photography:	Prum Mésar, Mourng Vet, Cheng Socheat, Sok Chan Rado
editing:	Rithy Panh, Eang Pisith
composer:	Marc Mader