Three Cambodian Media Students to Represent the Country in Thailand
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
After a one-week workshop in Phnom Penh, Tha Piseth, Tith Chandara and Chum Sophea, all students from the Department of Media and Communication at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, were selected as the national winners to compete in Thailand.
The Southeast Asian Student Documentary Award (SEADocs) is a competition to encourage the art of documentary filmmaking in the region, using the medium of film and television as a platform to engage with pressing environmental issues. Funded by the Goethe Institute in Thailand, the competition has a distinctly scientific focus: All films are to address issues of Climate Change and Biodiversity.
The award is open to participation from Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, inviting students between the age of 18 to 25 to submit a short documentary film of up to 15 minutes in length.
Taking place in Thailand from 25 - 30 November, all participants will be joining an intensive workshop in documentary film making, after which an international jury will award a prize of US$ 500 to each of the three overall winners. The grand prize of the event will be the award of a US$ 5000 film budget for a documentary production that will then be screened at the Science Film Festival 2011.
Director of the Meta Art Center in Cambodia Nico Mesterharm, who organized the national workshop and was part of the selection committee, said that possible outcome of the international competition is too early to tell: “I don’t know whether any of the Cambodian films is a winner due to the fact that I haven’t yet seen the other pieces besides the three in here [Cambodia].”
Chum Sophea, 23, one of the three DMC student film makers to go to Thailand says that he hopes to bring Cambodia a good reputation. “I had submitted my film My River, My Fish, My Life and I cannot say anything about my chances to win, but I hope to represent Cambodia well at this big international event.” The Department of Media and Communication (DMC) was established in 2001, under the Royal University of Phnom Penh, primarily as an academic training ground for professional journalists and communication practitioners. (DMC Press Release)
