Bophana Center

The Bophana Center acquires film, television, photography and sound archives on Cambodia from all around the world and gives free public access to this precious heritage. Cambodia’s memory was nearly erased by three decades of war and genocide orchestrated by the Khmer Rouge. Between 1975 and 1979, a quarter of the population died from hunger, disease, exhaustion or assassination. Intellectuals were particularly targeted by the regime. The Bophana Center was developed by critically acclaimed Cambodian film director Rithy Panh, along with Ieu Pannakar. Their intention was to go even further than the duty of rememberance by educating the next generations. From the very beginning, the Bophana Center has been offering young Cambodians vocational training as well as professional support over the long run. Thus, archivists, film and audiovisual technicians as well as young filmmakers have been trained at the Bophana Center. The center is now opening up to multimedia: it launched pilots on the Internet and now develops new multimedia training curriculum. While being a discussion forum for the artists, the Bophana Center also supports art creation in all forms and produces documentaries and fictions about Cambodia, which are the archives of tomorrow. Since it opened on December 4, 2006, over 240,000 people have (re)discovered these documents in Phnom Penh and throughout the country. Currently, nearly 700 hours of video are available.