Who Killed Chea Vichea?
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Images
Website
http://www.whokilledcheavichea.com
Topics
Economy: Trade
Human Development: Labor
Human Rights: Civil Rights
Politics: Corruption & Transparency, Globalization, Justice and Crime
Project Geography
International: Asia
Identity Niches
Budget
Raised to date: $196,500.00
Estimate to complete: $68,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $264,500.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 06/15/2009
Status
Distribution
Media Type
Video
Project End Use
Other: TV, DVD distribution, festival and community screenings
Key Personnel
Bradley Cox
Director
Bradley Cox was born in New York City and graduated from Antioch University in London. His films have won numerous film festival awards including the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the Silver Lone Star at Houston for his short subject IN THE MEAN TIME. In Los Angeles, he signed to direct his original script A SECRET LIFE for Fine Line Films, but when the project went into turnaround, he traveled to Asia to co-found Bhutan’s first film school and then traveled to Cambodia.
While filming a documentary on the 2003 elections there, he met union leader Chea Vichea, whose assassination in January 2004 set him on the path to making WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA?.
Jeffrey Saunders
Producer
Jeffrey Saunders is an Emmy-nominated director/producer and founder of CinemaCapital, an independent production and distribution company based in New York City. He got his start in film in 1993 working as a script reader at EMK Productions in Los Angeles working on behalf of HBO and TNT.
Saunders has directed and produced fiction, non-fiction, series, commercials and industrials. His films have been selected at international festivals including the Berlinale, IDFA, SWSX, Thessaloniki and acquired by broadcasters including Sundance, ARTE, ZDF, and SBS.
His feature film GOAL DREAMS was selected as one of the top 10 ‘Movies That Matter’ by Amnesty International in 2006.
Rich Garella
Producer
Rich Garella has been at times a journalist, political organizer, graphic designer, photographer and electoral consultant. After working in Philadelphia as a political organizer on foreign policy and health care issues, he moved to Cambodia in 1995 to join the staff of The Cambodia Daily. Later he worked as press secretary for Cambodia's main opposition party during the 1998 election; during this period he met Chea Vichea. Since then he has worked for The New York Times, the International Republican Institute and MoveOn.org.
In 2003 Garella co-wrote and produced POLYGRAPH, a finalist in MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest. In 2005, his long-form article “A Tragedy of No Importance” was published by Mother Jones magazine.
Garella formed Loud Mouth Films with director Bradley Cox in 2008 to work on the documentary WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA?
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? will be supported by the Chea Vichea Project, an outreach program designed to allow the largest possible audience to see the film, to bring to that audience a more concrete understanding of the spin-off effects of trade globalization, and to share insight into the political, social, labor and human rights issues facing communities in neighboring countries of Southeast Asia. The fiscal sponsor of the Project is Asia Catalyst, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in New York.
If appropriately funded, the Chea Vichea Project will use the film to promote personal and organizational connections across borders: between Cambodians and people in neighboring countries; between Cambodian garment workers and their counterparts in industrialized countries; and between those workers and consumers in importing countries. Our goals are to help our audience inside Cambodia see themselves as part of a larger world that cares about them, to give our audiences outside Cambodia the motivation and tools to influence their own policymakers when possible, and to build cross-border understanding and collaboration.
The Project's multi-level outreach campaign will reach audiences at the individual level and through the organizations with which they are affiliated. It will include online mobilization, film screenings, DVD distribution through non-traditional networks, and educational outreach.
Our online presence is anchored by our web site at www.whokilledcheavichea.com. The web site now includes the trailer, background information about the film, a production blog and a contact sign-up form. We will continue to expand our contact list through outreach to relevant online communities.
The online presence will support organizational outreach through our high-level contacts at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, various international labor groups, Cambodian associations and many more. We will work with these organizations to promote the film through their own newsletters, e-mail lists and networks, and to sponsor screenings.
Target Audiences
The target audiences include Cambodians (inCambodia and abroad), working people (especially in the garment industry), consumers, citizens of neighboring and similar countries to Cambodia, citizens in countries that send aid to Cambodia and policymakers in those countries.
Most Cambodians overseas emigrated in the early 1970s or in the early 1980s from border refugee camps after fleeing the Khmer Rouge. The generation born in the border camps (or later) has little or no exposure to life in Cambodia. The film will humanize the experiences of those who didn't get out, and strengthen expatriate Cambodians' connection to the country their parents fled. As one young Cambodian-American wrote to us: "Your filmis becomingthe topic of the conversation with my sister and me...my sister never told me the details because she didn't want me to know about it, too close to home."
Cambodian communities abroad have been under-served by the media because they are small minority communities. To reach them, we plan to use our extensive network of contacts with influential members of Cambodian communities in the US, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, and make the film available for local events through an online distribution mechanism.
With proper funding, WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? can be a tool for labor groups to better understand their counterparts in Cambodiaand how human rights and justice there affect trade agreements, which in turn affect them. We will offer the film and its discussion kit to local, regional and national labor groups. We hope to partner in this effort with organizations such as UNITE/HERE in the US and the International Trade Union Confederation based in Europe.
The Cambodian population is a priority target audience. Media surveys have confirmed that the primary channel for news propagation in Cambodia is word of mouth. The vast majority of Cambodians live outside of the main cities and towns where newspapers are available, and literacy levels are very low. The broadcast media are tightly controlled by the ruling party. We want to bring the film to people who have been deprived of accurate information about events in their own country. But in addition to providing this information, we want to pierce the veil of isolation; the Cambodian people and their government will know that the outside world is watching — and engaged.
The political and economic conditions of Cambodia are extreme but not unique. We plan to offer the film as a cross-border educational tool throughout the Southeast Asian region. We hope to work with regionally active organizations to help us translate the film into Chinese, Burmese and other regional languages and to help circulate the film. Examples of potential partners include the Open Society Institute's Southeast Asia Project, InterNews, Asia-Pacific Human Rights & Labour Advocates (Bangkok) and the Asian Human Rights Commission (Hong Kong). We also have a well-developed network of regional contacts centered in Chiang Mai, Thailand, who have expressed willingness to help distribute the film informally and to translate supporting materials into additional local languages.
We believe the film will be a thematically rich platform for learning and discussing political science, economics, justice, Asian area studies and more. In addition to seeking a traditional educational distributor, we seek funding to develop a teaching unit around the film, and to adapt and translate it for use in other Asian countries. The teaching unit will be customizable in both formal and informal settings. The outreach campaign will be designed to maximize the film's impact on its target audiences and to offer a tool that people can use as they themselves feel appropriate.
Funding & Partnership
The extent to which the Chea Vichea Project can achieve these goals depends on support beyond production of the film itself. Budget items include translation and subtitling of the film as well as dubbing for non-reading audiences, physical distribution, transportation for discussion leaders where appropriate and development of appropriate educational materials in various languages and for various audiences.
In some cases we may organize these components ourselves, with financial help from a funder, but we believe we can extend our reach the farthest by putting funders together with partner groups who feel that the film can contribute to their own programmatic goals.
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Independent Television Service (ITVS) | $16,000.00 | 07/01/2009 | |
| Individual Donors | $5,500.00 | 02/28/2009 | |
| Independent Television Service (ITVS) | $100,000.00 | 12/23/2008 | |
| Producers | $75,000.00 | 05/12/2008 |
Location
1643 S Bancroft St
Philadelphia, PA, 19145
Short Synopsis
In Cambodia few dare to speak out for justice. Chea Vichea, the charismatic president of the garment workers' union, was one of the few -- until he was gunned down in broad daylight in 2004. Filmed over five years, WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? explores the motives for the assassination and unravels the plot that framed two men, who were sentenced to 20 years for a crime committed by others.
Description/Treatment
WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? follows the assassination of Cambodia's most popular and influential labor leader and the conviction of two innocent men. It's an unprecedented look into the inner workings of one of the world's most corrupt states.
The documentary was shot over five years, starting shortly before the assassination and following events as they occurred. An early edit was selected for the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2008 and was named one of Amnesty International's top ten Movies That Matter. Since then, further developments in the case sent us back to the editing suite to make substantial changes.
A one-hour television version co-produced with ITVS was completed in early 2010. Voiceover is in English, but much of the dialogue is in Khmer with English subtitles.
We will supplement the one-hour version with a five-minute short subject, Made in Cambodia, that further explores the scope and role of the garment trade in Cambodia in particular, and looks at the impact of the trade relationship with importing countries, especially the U.S., which imports annually about $2 billion in garments from Cambodia. This material will be incorporated into the longer version.
Background
By 2004, Cambodia was becoming one of the world's largest garment exporters. Hundreds of foreign-owned factories were built, employing tens of thousands of Cambodia's poor, most of them young women who flooded in from the countryside. The country quickly became dependent on garment exports for the bulk of its export income. Its biggest customer was, and is, the United States, which imports some $2 billion a year in garments from Cambodia. The US and other western countries also support Cambodia through millions in foreign aid.
Cambodia's garment workers had chosen Chea Vichea as president of Cambodia’s free trade union. Vichea slept on a mat in the union office and didn’t collect a salary. Despite beatings and death threats, he rallied the workers as they fought for wage increases, improved working conditions and an end to forced overtime, and often won. Vichea could call 50,000 workers into the streets and didn't ask for permission to do it. He gained an international reputation in the labor movement, and Cambodia gained a reputation as a country where social responsibility was put into practice.
But inside Cambodia, the lessons of the Khmer Rouge regime, and of the regimes before and after it, were learned all too well. Ally oneself with power, cower in its shadow—or face the consequences. On a sunny morning in 2004, as Vichea read a newspaper at a sidewalk kiosk, three bullets from an assassin's pistol silenced him forever.
Cambodia's reputation was in danger. Under intense international pressure, the police arrested two men, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, and extracted a confession. They were convicted in a packed and chaotic courtroom, sentenced to twenty years, and hauled away to prison. It appeared justice had been done. But had it? The confession, it turned out, was forced, as is usual in Cambodia. Facts in the case turned out to be fiction. Justice turned out to be a tragic farce. Why were these men framed? Would they survive their time behind bars? Who really killed Chea Vichea?
The Film
Bradley Cox arrived at the scene of the murder minutes after it occurred. From that moment, he filmed every important development and tracked down every lead until he could piece together the untold story; from the killing of Vichea through the trial, conviction and appeals of Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, to the lives of family members and witnesses in exile, to the surprising recent developments in the case on the last day of 2008.
As we follow the investigation through the dusty streets and slums of Phnom Penh to remote villages, through courtrooms, brothels, factories and gambling dens, we see not only how the police plotted to frame the two suspects, but how the implications of the assassination and the frame-up reach all the way to the headquarters of the ruling party.
The events are supported by interviews with workers, politicians, diplomats, labor and human rights experts, family members and witnesses—every person who could add a key element to the story. We learn that the murder of Chea Vichea and the conviction of two innocent men were the inevitable consequences of two realities: the lack of the rule of law, and the desperation of a dictatorial state to retain power over the workers who produce Cambodia's enormous output of garments and who are the country's only industrial resource.
In addition to Cambodia, interviews take place in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, the US, the UK and Thailand, where the only known eyewitness to the assassination finally reveals what she saw.
WHO KILLED CHEA VICHEA? is about the killing of one man and the slow silencing of an entire nation. It is about how a small elite keeps an iron grip on power through the use of its police, its army, its manipulation of the courts and its most effective tool: fear. And it is about how hope survives against the odds.
Click here to ask for more information about this project: