Hope and closure are not always words that come to mind when discussing a film about the Khmer Rouge, whose bloody, fanatical rule from 1975 to 1979 resulted in the deaths of more than two million people from starvation, disease, torture and executions. But these two do come together, despite the pain of memories, in Cambodia After Farewell, a well-acclaimed, 100-minute documentary by French Cambodian director Iv Charbonneau-Ching and Jeremy Knittel to mark 4 decades since the Khmer Rouge took control of the Southeast Asian country to put in place the purest form of communism and the ideal agrarian society. The documentary follows the journey back to Cambodia – and into the past – of the family of Iv Charbonneau-Ching, with his mother and aunt, as they reconstruct, piece by piece, what happened to the family members they lost to the Khmer Rouge.
