Screened as part of NZIFF 2013

The Missing Picture 2013

L'Image manquante

Directed by Rithy Panh

Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh’s perennial project is to bear witness to the history that the Khmer Rouge, with terrible effectiveness, systematically consigned to oblivion. In this remarkable new film, winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes this year, he enlists a mix of narration, propaganda footage, music, photos and tiny carved models.

Cambodia / France In French with English subtitles
90 minutes Colour and B&W / DCP

Director

Producer

Catherine Dussart

Screenplay

Rithy Panh
,
Christophe Bataille

Photography

Prum Mesa

Editors

Rithy Panh
,
Marie-Christine Rougerie

Sound

Eric Tisserand

Music

Marc Marder

Narrator

Randal Douc

Festivals

Cannes (Un Certain Regard) 2013

Awards

Un Certain Regard Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2013

Elsewhere

Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh’s perennial project is to bear witness to the history that the Khmer Rouge, with terrible effectiveness, systematically consigned to oblivion. In this remarkable new film, winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes this year, he enlists a mix of narration, propaganda footage, music, photos and tiny carved models. 

“A recreation of the era and Panh’s personal anecdotes is accomplished through the creation of countless clay figures – carved and painted, we see, by hand, out of ‘earth and water’ – staged in static scenes through which the camera moves and the director cuts. They fill in a gap, the missing image of the title: a missing photographic record of the human experience of the horror and oppression behind the government’s official ideology… Panh’s narration with moving straightforwardness segues between historical recount, deeply personal recollections, and broader criticism, illustrated by the savagely naïve and thereby at once terrifying and sweet figures of his clay populace.” — Daniel Kasman, Mubi.com