Top 8 Documentaries about Cambodia and its History

Intro: Documentaries About Cambodia

Cambodia is a South east Asian country that is located on the Indochina mainland. It is largely a land of plains and high-quality rivers, and lies amid critical overland and river alternate routes linking China to India and Southeast Asia. The impacts of many Asian cultures, alongside those of France and America, may be visible in the capital, Phnom Penh, certainly one of a handful of urban centres in large parts of rural countries.

For almost 2,000 years, Cambodia's civilization received influences from India and China and passed them on to other Southeast Asian civilizations. It ruled over lands that are now part of Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos from the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms of Funan and Chenla (1st–8th century) to the classical period of the Angkor length (9th–15th century). The Khmer (Cambodian) empire reached its pinnacle in the 12th century, which was distinguished by constructing the vast temple complexes known as Angkor Wat and Bayon and the imperial city of Angkor Thom. Following 400 years of decline, Cambodia has become a French colony. All through the 20th century, experienced the turmoil of war, a career with the aid of the Japanese, postwar independence, and political instability.

1. Cambodia: The forgotten temple of Banteay Chhmar - Cambodia Documentaries

Many tourists do not understand that the Seventh Wonder of the World is one of many historical Khmer temples dotting the Cambodian nation-state. Hidden under the cover of trees in the northwestern jungles of Cambodia lies a lesser-regarded beauty: Banteay Chhmar, which roughly translates to "Citadel of Cats." Brought to lifestyles within the twelfth century with the aid of Jayavarman VII, one of the Khmer Empire's best rulers, this little-understood temple turned into left uninhabited for almost 800 years.

Time, intense pillaging, and the inevitable domination of nature left the website in a state of semi-disintegrate. It was brought to UNESCO's tentative listing in 1992. In 2008, the Global Heritage Fund and the Cambodian authorities started conservation and network improvement efforts, quickly establishing the complex to traffic.

2. The lost world of the Khmer Rouge: Pol Pot's Cambodian Genocide - Documentaries about Cambodia

In power from 1975-1979, the brutal regime claimed the lives of up to two million human beings. Under the Marxist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge attempted to retake Cambodia to the Middle Ages, forcing tens of millions of humans from the towns to work on communal farms in the geographical region.

But this dramatic try at social engineering had a terrible price. Whole households died from execution, hunger, disease, and overwork.

3. Cambodian Girls Who Got Dragged Into Prostitution - Cambodia Sex-Trafficking Documentary

In the grim context of the sex industry in Cambodia, this documentary portrays the lives of three young girls who have been forced into prostitution. Srey Leak, Me Nea, and Cheata are mere children, but they are burdened with the responsibilities of helping their families and endure the same concerns, vulnerabilities, and personal aspirations as any other teenager in the world. Through their own words, the film tells a story about resilience, humour and sisterhood amid daunting challenges.

4. The Life of Pol Pot - Cambodia Genocide Documentary

Pol Pot, uniquely called Saloth Sar, (born May 19, 1925, Kompong Thom province, Cambodia—died April 15, 1998, near Anlong Veng, alongside the Cambodia-Thailand border), Khmer political chief who led the Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime (1975–79) in Cambodia that imposed excessive hardships on the Cambodian humans. His revolutionary communist Government forced significant city evacuations, murdered or displaced millions of people, and left a legacy of violence and poverty.

Saloth Sar, The son of a landowning farmer, turned into sent at age five or six to live with an elder brother in Phnom Penh, in which he changed into educated in a French curriculum. A mediocre pupil, he failed the doorway examinations for high school and studied carpentry for a year at a technical faculty in Phnom Penh. In 1949, he took a trip to Paris on a scholarship to look at radio electronics. He became concerned with the French Communist Party and joined a set of young left-wing Cambodian nationalists who later became his fellow leaders inside the Khmer Rouge.

5. Cambodia's Dark Past - Documentary about Cambodia

Many vacationers do now not apprehend the Seventh Wonder of the World is one of masses of historic Khmer temples dotting the Cambodian geographical region. Hidden underneath a cover of timber in the northwestern jungles of Cambodia lies a lesser-regarded splendour: Banteay Chhmar, which kind of interprets to "Citadel of Cats." Brought to lifestyles within the 12th century with the resource of Jayavarman VII, one of the Khmer Empire's best rulers, this little-understood temple changed into left uninhabited for nearly 800 years.

Time, extreme pillaging, and the inevitable domination of nature left the internet website in a kingdom of semi-disintegrate. It has become delivered to UNESCO's tentative list in 1992.

In 2008, the Global Heritage Fund and the Cambodian Government started conservation and community improvement efforts, organizing the complicated traffic speedy aft.

6. Why did The west ignore the Cambodian Genocide? - Cambodia Documentary

The bracing announcement Sunday by using Pope Francis that the mass killings of Armenians through Turks amid World War I constituted the "first genocide of the twentieth century" may also have the brought gain of focusing interest on the sector's steady failure to save you mass violence inside the century when you consider that that slaughter.

One horror that deserves clean interest commenced to spread forty years ago this week: Black-clad soldiers of the Khmer Rouge, a thorough communist organization, marched into Phnom Penh and forced two million residents at gunpoint to go away. For the countryside to create an agrarian "utopia."

7. Glamorous Cambodia's: Paradise on earth - Documentaries about Cambodia

It is a well-shot series on Cambodia's people and culture, its historical legacy, and a wealth of knowledge that most people are unlikely to know about this Southeast Asian country. It transports the spectator to many facets of Cambodian life, from the glories of Angkor Wat to a leather carving artist who has converted his studio into an orphanage where he teaches children his craft.

8. Cambodian Killing Fields - Cambodian Genocide Documentary

Since the 1960s, the Khmer Rouge has formed guerrilla armies within the jungles that coated Cambodia's border with Vietnam. They believed they had been in a class battle, a war against the forces of capitalism. They supported the communist-led North Vietnamese Army and South Vietnam's National Liberation Front, the Việt Cộng.

Ethnic, knowledgeable, urban, professional human beings had been centred. All and sundry, who was vaguely linked to capitalism and related to the USA, subsidized the Cambodian Government, the Khmer Republic, which had taken the strength of Cambodia from King Norodom Sihanouk in 1970. Although seemingly impartial, politically speaking, Sihanouk had allowed the Việt Cộng to get entry to Cambodia, which helped the North Vietnamese against the Republic of Vietnam inside the South.