Phnom Penh is the capital and most populous city of Cambodia. It has been the national capital since the French protectorate of Cambodia and has grown to become the nation's primate city and its economic, industrial, and cultural centre. Before Phnom Penh became capital city, Oudong was the capital of the country.
Articles related to Cambodia and Cambodian culture include:
Kampong Thom is a province (khaet) of Cambodia. It borders the provinces of Siem Reap to the northwest, Preah Vihear to the north, Stung Treng to the northeast, Kratie to the east, Kampong Cham and Kampong Chhnang to the south, and the Tonle Sap to the west.
Rithy Panh is a Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter.
Tith Vichara Dany(Khmer: ទិត្យ វិជ្ជរ៉ាដានី) was a popular Cambodian actress who most likely made her debut in 1967. She starred in a majority of films, which include Thavory Meas Bong, Tep Sodachan, and Sovann Pancha, during the nation's golden age of cinema. She is often paired on screen with fellow actor Kong Sam-Oeurn. Other notable actors she started with are Chea Yuthorn and Vann Vannak. In only a span of at least seven years, she is credited with having starred in over one hundred films. Details of her life are relatively unknown, and she is believed to have perished shortly after the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Siem Reap is the second-largest city of Cambodia, as well as the capital and largest city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia.
Dy Saveth is a Cambodian actress and first Miss Cambodia (1959) often referred to as the "actress of tears". She is "one of the most beloved actresses from the 1960s era of Cambodian film".
The Snake King's Child is a 2001 Cambodian-Thai horror film directed by Fai Sam Ang, based on a Cambodian myth about the half-human daughter of a snake god. It was produced as a sequel to the 1970 movie The Snake King's Wife. It is the first full-length feature film for cinema to be produced in Cambodia since before the Khmer Rouge era. The special effect of the lead character's head being full of writhing snakes was achieved by gluing live snakes to a cap worn by the actress.
Nieng Arp, with an international title of Lady Vampire and also known as Vampire and Bodyless, is a 2004 Cambodian horror film. The film is based on Khmer folklore beliefs about Arp or Ap, a mythical popular demon which is found in Southeast Asia. The film is directed by Kam Chanthy, a Cambodian-born director who was trained in Thailand.
Tep Rindaro is a Cambodian actor and singer. He started acting in 1987. With his career spanning more over 30 years, he is one of the longest starring actors in Cambodia since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.
The Snake Man, also known as The Snake King's Wife is a 1970 Cambodian drama horror film based on a Cambodian myth about a snake goddess, starring the most well-known Khmer actress of the era, Dy Saveth and Chea Yuthorn, who became popular in Thailand after the film's release. The film was directed by Chinese Cambodian director Tea Lim Koun who experienced unprecedented success as a result of the film and is known today as one of the fathers of Khmer Cinema.
Gratefulness, also Katanho, is a Cambodian drama film, based on a true life of a young girl who lived in Phnom Penh. The film was considered one of the best films of the year in Cambodia. The film had a highly successful theatrical run and received several awards at the Khmer film festival. These included the best actress award for Ly Chan Siha. Despite being based on true life, the film has some similarity to Thailand's 1985 film Walli (thai:วัลลี). as well as another film produced by Campro Production, Neang Neath which seem to be the remake of Nang Nak, Thai 1999s horror film. This film was released at the Kirirom cinema in Phnom Penh with English subtitles.
Campro Production (CP) was a Cambodian film and Karaoke production company based in Phnom Penh that operated from 2003 to 2007.
Horror films in Cambodia, first popular in the 1970s, have received renewed attention in Cambodian film making since the resurgence of the local industry in 2003. Horror is one of three popular genres into which most Cambodian films can be loosely grouped, the other two being period pieces and melodrama/romantic drama. The fledgling Cambodian industry of the mid 2000s looked to capitalize on the world-wide popularity of Japanese horror films which have heavily influenced Cambodian horror films. Common themes are ghost or spirit hauntings, possession, folk mythology and revenge by supernatural means. The storytelling takes a slower pace than Western horror and relies on suspense, a pervasive sense of doom and dread, and psychologically disturbing events and situations. Unlike its Japanese counterparts however, many Cambodian horror films also feature over the top gore as seen in Western horror.
Saksi Sbong is a Cambodian actress who mainly played the role of villains in Cambodian pre-Khmer Rouge films.
The Bophana Center is an audiovisual center located in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The center is dedicated to restoring, protecting and enhancing the Cambodian audiovisual heritage.
Kong Bunchhoeun was a Khmer writer, novelist, songwriter, filmmaker, painter, and poet. Bunchhoeun composed more than 200 songs between the 1960s and the 1970s and contributed to “Golden Age” of films and songs in Cambodia. He composed a number of hit songs for Cambodia's greatest singer of all time, Sinn Sisamouth and the contemporary vocalist and singer Preap Sovath. Most of his work touched upon his hometown of Battambang, earning him the pen name “Master Poet of Sangkae River”.
Khun Srun was an important Cambodian writer. He was born in Char village (ភូមិចារ), Rorvieng sub-district (ឃុំរវៀង), Samrong district (ស្រុកសំរោង), Takéo province, into a poor Chinese Cambodian family. When he was eight, his father, Khun Kim Chheng, a Chinese man who had fled Communism, died, and he and his six siblings were raised by his mother, Chi Eng, a small shopkeeper and a devout Buddhist. He began his schooling during the country's first years of independence, when the doors to higher education and professionalization were inching open to all Cambodians, regardless of their social and economic class. A brilliant student, he studied Khmer literature and psychology at the university in Phnom Penh, becoming widely read in sciences, mathematics, and European literature. Amid the turmoil of the 1960s, he worked as a professor of mathematics and a journalist while writing fiction and poetry. He also worked as a member of the textbook editorial committee at the Ministry of Education. In less than four years, he published three collections of poems, short tales, and philosophical anecdotes; two collections of autobiographical short stories, The Last Residence and The Accused; and a final volume of poems, For a Woman. He was influenced by both existentialism and Cambodian Buddhism. In 1971, he was imprisoned during 7 months by the right-wing Lon Nol government for refusing to collaborate, but still refused to align himself with the extreme left. In 1973, after being imprisoned for a second time, he finally joined the communist guerrillas. He was only 28, and his life as a writer was finished. After the Khmer Rouge took power, in 1975, Khun Srun was assigned work as a railway engineer). On the 20th of December 1978, he, his wife and their two youngest children were victims of the last purges. They were arrested, transferred to Tuol Sleng prison and probably killed in Choeung Ek, few days before the end of Pol Pot's regime. Only Khun Srun's nine-year-old daughter, Khun Khem, survived, taken by Khmer Rouge cadres and forced to live among them in the forest on the Cambodian-Thai border.
Chuth Khay / ខ្ជិត ខ្យៃ is a Cambodian writer and translator. He was born in 1940 in Koh Somrong, Cambodia, an island on the Mekong about one hundred kilometers north of the capital. The youngest son, he was the only one in a family of ten children to attend a Western school. He pursued primary and secondary studies in Kampong Cham. While working as a teacher of French, he attended classes at the Royal University of Phnom Penh and, in 1968, received his law degree. Opposed to the monarchy, he became a legal advisor to the Ministry of Defense after Sihanouk's removal from power in 1970. From 1973 to 1974, he served as interim dean of the law school. In 1973, he published two successful collections of short stories: Ghouls, Ghosts, and Other Infernal Creatures and Widow of Five Husbands. He also wrote for Soth Polin's newspaper, Nokor Thom (នគរធំ), and published his books and translations with its publishing house. Forced into the countryside by the Khmer Rouge, he miraculously escaped death by pretending to be mute. Granted refuge in France in 1980 and French citizenship, he took the name Chuth Chance, for receiving a second chance in life. He worked for several years as a taxi driver, and is now retired and lives near Paris.
