Film gives Brother Number 2 a voice

James O'Toole

Phnom Penh Post

WHEN did you realise that villagers were being killed?” an elderly Nuon Chea is asked, sitting at his home in Pailin province.
“I can’t really remember the exact moment,” he responds. “I just went on with my work and didn’t jot it down.”

These remarks come in Enemies of the People, a new documentary set to premiere in Cambodia this month, and they are typical of the filmmakers’ interviews with Nuon Chea.

The candour and unapologetic tone with which the former Democratic Kampuchea Brother No 2 discusses his role in the regime are among the most striking elements of the film, and some observers say they may alter the course of proceedings against him in the Khmer Rouge tribunal’s second case.

Enemies of the People has been showing at film festivals around the world for the past few months to critical acclaim, winning the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York last month. Cambodian Co-director Thet Sambath, who also works as a senior reporter for the Post, says it is set to premiere at Phnom Penh’s Meta House gallery on July 21, just five days before the reading of the verdict in Case 001, that of Tuol Sleng prison chief Kaing Guek Eav.

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