By Jia H. Jung, California Local News Fellow
The Cambodia Town Film Festival (CTFF) is kicking off its 10th edition in Long Beach, Calif. with a private filmmaker reception followed by sold-out sarong party at Sophy’s Cambodian and Thai restaurant this evening. The program spotlights 30 short, feature, and documentary films that will screen all weekend at the city’s Art Theatre.
In 2013, musician, artist, writer and activist praCh Ly and filmmaker and U.S. military veteran Caylee So, held the first CTFF at the same historic theater, which is 100 years old this year.
In doing so, the Cambodian co-founders and co-directors launched the first and still the only film festival in the U.S. that focuses on works by Cambodian creators around the world.
“When I was growing up I didn’t see people who looked like me on screen,” Ly shared with AsAmNews, on the eve of the festival’s 2024 installation. “Now, the younger generations get to go with their parents and grandparents and see somebody who looks like them or is them up there, and it’s a beautiful thing.”
Additionally, this year marks an in-person return after two years of hiatus provoked by the pandemic and the writer’s strike, though CTFF did have online screenings in 2020 and 2021.
Ly said that the planning team had to essentially start from scratch rebuilding the relationships with sponsors, vendors, and creators to be able to put forth the offerings for this year.
Live screenings will be held on Saturday, Sept. 14 and Sunday, Sept. 15 at the single screen of the art-deco Arts Theatre. The venue, in its centennial year, is one of the city’s last-standing independent theaters, located along the 4th Street corridor “Retro Row” business district just southeast of Cambodia Town.
Ly promised that the festival will take care of the Cambodian community’s elders and serve them lunch each day. He also expressed gratitude to the RuMBa foundation, an organization devoted to expanding arts access for children grades K-12 in the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD).
RuMBa’s sponsorship has made it possible for CTFF to offer free movie tickets to senior citizens and students this year.
Ly said that college students were eligible for this benefit, too, and that anyone seeking free tickets can obtain them at limited will-call or make online reservations by writing to [email protected].
Amid proclamations and congratulatory acknowledgements by Mayor Rex Richardson, State senator Lena Gonzalez (D-CA, Dist. 33), and Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, among other luminaries and leaders, Ly said that he had no way of predicting how many people would show up, just as he had no way to know what films people will submit or how they will fit into the committee’s curation of selections.
Much-anticipated features this year include exciting girls’ basketball documentary Home Court (U.S. – 2024), orphanage horror mystery The Night Curse of Reatrei (Cambodia – 2024), haunted building flick Tenement (Cambodia – 2024), and Sinn Sisamouth biography Elvis of Cambodia (Cambodia, U.S. – 2023).
Short narrative and documentary films from Cambodia and the U.S. will cover the arcs of villagers and vendors, a boxer, a comedian living with dwarfism, single and widowed mothers, corporate workers, a soul-searching man who finds out what it means to be truly rich, and more.
Satook, a 30-minute selection directed by Ly himself, explores the transformative effects of war and immigration on Cambodian American religious traditions.
“Each year is different,” Ly said, encouraging all filmmakers to submit for future festivals, and to try again if they ever receive rejections from CTFF or any other festival. “Films are very subjective, and we know how hard it is to make a film. So keep thriving, keep pushing on,” he said.
Growing reflective, Ly mentioned the significance of pushing on with his own works, which include the CTFF endeavor.
The Khmer Rouge Genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s attempted to extinguish all art forms by destroying art and killing bearers of tradition, intellectuals, and creators. Nearly 40 years later and an ocean away, at the inaugural CTFF, survivors and their descendants healed together by seeing their histories, culture, creativity, and experiences reflected on screen in the home of the largest Cambodian community in the U.S.
Ly remembered observing three generations of a family in the audience ten festivals ago.
“They were having a conversation and they were talking and the kids wanted to know about grandparents and they all started crying and hugging. That solidified the success of the festival for me,” he said.
“For me it’s personal – it’s not just showing movies, it’s rebuilding our culture and our community,” he concluded.
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