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50th Anniversary of Cambodian Genocide Highlights Memory and Justice Through Art

Paris hosts a major commemoration featuring films, debates, and exhibitions to confront historical erasure and honor the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Overview

  • The Forum des Images in Paris is hosting 'Qui se souvient du génocide cambodgien?', a program of films, exhibitions, and discussions marking 50 years since the Khmer Rouge's atrocities began.
  • Filmmaker Rithy Panh, a survivor of the genocide, is central to the event, with his documentaries reconstructing erased histories through innovative artistic methods.
  • The Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed visual records, leaving survivors and artists to rebuild memory through alternative forms of representation.
  • The Cambodian genocide has faced a 'double denial'—both contemporary denial during the regime and ongoing historical and legal erasure, with minimal prosecutions of its leaders.
  • The event also highlights the role of younger generations, including diasporic artists, in preserving and reshaping Cambodian cultural memory through cinema and art.

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