Brett Davis - AsiaLIFE Magazine

Thet
Sambath
and Rob
Lemkin
A personal journey to uncover the horrors of the Khmer Rouge becomes a powerful,
landmark documentary in Enemies of the People. Nora Lindström talks to filmmakers
Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin.
Enemies of the People is the
culmination of years of hard
work and gaining the confidence
of former Khmer Rouge
cadre. How do you feel now
that it is done?
Thet Sambath: I feel very
happy. When I got all this done
I felt like we are all lucky to
have these interviews from
Khmer Rouge cadre and especially
from Nuon Chea, Brother
Number Two. If we had gone to
trial without these interviews
we would have missed all this
information... I feel happy and
lucky for all people.
Did completing the film and
releasing it to the public bring
you closure?
TS: Yes, it did. Everything
that I have done is for the
new generation and for the
Cambodian people. When the
people get more information
good things between people
can happen. Like reconciliation,
people learn not to take
revenge and instead people
will find out how to resolve the
problem. That is my dream for
the future.
But at the beginning
when I started investigating I
just wanted to know what was
behind the killing of so many
people. The Khmer Rouge leaders,
especially the top leaders,
always refute that they killed
the people. The Cambodian
people are unhappy with the
answers from the top Khmer
Rouge. But because we get
confessions from them, people
can get peace.
The film features unprecedented
confessions by former
Khmer Rouge cadre, especially
Nuon Chea. How did you
manage to get them to talk?
TS: It was hard, I tried for
many years. It was a step-bystep
process. I’ve known some
of these people for five or 10
years. 
I knew that these people
had experience with the Khmer
Rouge, that they killed people.
But they had never confessed,
because they felt embarrassed
and uncomfortable. But I knew
about these people and that’s
why I tried to get close to them.
When we get close to each
other and trust each other, then
everything will come out, the
truth will come out. So I got
everything.
Rob Lemkin: In the film
Sambath says many times “I
am not from the court, tell me
the truth.” For years people
have been coming to the Khmer
Rouge, from Pol Pot all the way
down to the killers from the
countryside, to say “I accuse
you, I have evidence you did
this”. And [the killers] immediately
react to that by saying
“I don’t know anything about
it. I did nothing.”
Sambath’s
approach to the whole thing
is completely different. His
approach is very, very, careful,
even respectful. Surprisingly
respectful toward people who
many in the world would
regard as not worthy of any
kind of respect. He does not
come in any spirit of accusation.
He comes in the spirit of
trying to say, “I know what you
were involved with was very
great and terrible. Tell me what
you know and tell what you
did.”

That is such a different
attitude from the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia (ECCC), which is a
criminal justice procedure that
simply seeks to get guilty verdicts.
That is why that kind of
process is extremely limited by
comparison to the kind of work
that Sambath is doing.
My
personal view is that the ECCC
will do nothing towards socially
reconstructing the country
and that what Sambath is doing
represents something far more
inspiring and positive.
Was the potential of Sambath’s
material immediately obvious
to you?
RL: Sambath had started to
film interviews with Nuon
Chea and some other people
who are in the film about one
or two months before we met
back in September 2006 when
I came to do a film about the
Khmer Rouge trial. Initially
Sambath was working for me
as a fixer, but over the coming
months we joined forces. For
a while I was still trying to do
a film about the trial, but then
I became less interested in
that. Then I realized Sambath
had a relationship with Nuon
Chea, and he told me about
his relationship with people in
the countryside, and I thought
that was more interesting. So it
wasn’t an immediate thing. It
was gradual. After about seven
or eight months from when we
started filming, not with Nuon
Chea but with the killers in
the countryside, that’s when I
realized we had a film. Because
although the interviews with
Nuon Chea are the ones that
are newsworthy, the heart of
the film really is the relationship
with the ordinary people
who were involved in this
chain of killing.
The documentary has met
with a lot of success, including
winning the Special Jury Prize
at Sundance and the Grand
Jury Award at the Full Frame
Documentary Festival. Did
you expect so much international
publicity and acclaim?
RL: To be honest, no. When we
started right at the beginning,
it looked like it was just going
to be a half an hour programme
for British TV which would
have been finished a long
time ago. And maybe even
forgotten about a long time
ago too. 

Gradually, it became
possible to widen the scope of
the film so that it had more profound
content. The universal
aspect of the story—of good
and evil, of repentance, of the
horror of mass killings, and the
idea of a victim coming to see
the people who destroyed his
world as a child and coming in
a genuinely open and almost
tolerant sprit in the interest
of getting a deeper story, a
deeper truth out of it all—that
has got a wider theme. It’s
not just about Cambodia and
I think that’s why the film–in
pretty much every country–has
been so well received and won
prizes.
The documentary’s screening
in Cambodia took place just
before Duch’s verdict was anticipated.
Was this your plan?
RL: Yes. It was intentional to
have it around this time. The
court has tried to subpoena
the film as evidence in the case
against Nuon Chea. We’ve
resisted that and have come
under some criticism from the
court for that because I don’t
think they have appreciated the
nature of proper journalism.
When you have a relationship
with someone who is giving
you some very vital information,
you get that information
from the person on a certain
basis. You can’t then turn
around to a court process and
hand over that information to
them. They’ve accused us of
letting the Khmer Rouge walk
free. Our line would be that
if you have 2 million dollars,
which is 1.99 million more than
we have, you can do your work
and get your own information.
It’s not our problem if you can’t
convict these people.
[The court] is not interested
in reconciliation. They’re not
interested in seeing this society
go forward in any kind of way.
We’re showing it here now
partly also because it is opening
next week in America, and we
wanted to release it here before
anywhere else because this is
the most important place. We
originally wanted to show it
earlier but the government
refused us permission. Ideally
we would have showed it in a
big cinema with thousands of
Cambodians coming to see it,
but we didn’t get permission to
do that.
In the future we would
like to show the film around the
Cambodian countryside. Even
the guys who did the killings
want the film to be shown all
around Cambodia.
What do you hope audiences,
especially Khmer viewers, will
take away from the film?
TS: I think that after they see
the film they will get some
knowledge and some people
can understand and they can
feel better from the confession.
Because for many years it has
been hard to get confessions,
especially from Khmer Rouge
leaders and the people who
did the killings. I’m waiting for
their reactions.
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