A documentary using small clay figures to tell the story of how Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh’s family perished under the Khmer Rouge regime won the top prize in the second most important competition at the Cannes film festival on Saturday, reports Reuters.
‘L’Image Manquante’ (The Missing Picture) was among the 18 films that premiered in the Un Certain Regard category that was set up to encourage emerging and innovative filmmakers and run alongside the main competition at the world’s top film festival.
Panh, 49, a prolific filmmaker whose films concentrate on the brutality in Cambodia when an estimated 1.7 million people were killed during the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, said the prize was important for his country.
‘For a country that has emerged from its difficulties and years of war, it is important to say we are still alive,’ Panh told Reuters after receiving his award at a red carpet ceremony in the French Riviera resort.
The jury led by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg described the documentary as ‘one of the most powerful films.’
-With New Age input
