Present: Michael LaRocca, Heike
Löschmann, John Cadet, Edward van Tuyll,
Olivier Evrard, Michael Williams, Renee Vines, Hannah Rumble, Richard
Bieda, Oliver Hargreave, Patrice Victa, Mathilde Mahon, Ricky Ward,
Marc Callermart, Ray Kanlig, Jesse Kus, Carol and Bob Stratton, Peter
Schupp,
Klaus Berkmüller, Andy Northrop, Jessica Loh, Eva Pascal, Adam
Dedman, John
Butt, Elizabeth Melchionna, Guy Cardinal, Richard Nelson-Jones, Lorenz
Ferrari, Peter Holmston, Diamond, Lae Lae, Klaus Bettenhausen, Malay
Chan,
Su Mon Aye, David Steane, Valeria Tancred, Tom Fawthrop, Dirk De
Guyper,
Cathy Harbour, Guillaume Bagneris, Catherine Nesbit, Hans and Saengdao
Bänziger, Saw Poe Zaw, Doi Doi, Patrick McGowan, Michael Tuckson,
Tony and
Supan Kidd, Margaret Deelman, Glynn Morgan, Thomas Ohlson, Bonnie
Brereton,
Carool Kersten, Robert M. Boer, Sophie Le Creu, Suphak Nosten, Camille
Callermart, Eva Leyenne, Mututu, Noreen, Mook Paw, Jay Rabin, Kim
Nielsen,
Colin Hinshelwood, Katie Wood, Htan Dah, Kalyani McCullough, Hnin Hnin
Aye,
Nosten, Nancy Eberhardt. An audience of 72.
François Bizot's introduction to the film
I went to Cambodia in 1965 and stayed until 1975,
then in Thailand until 1994, then in Laos. It is good to be back in
Chiang Mai. "Beyond the Gate", the film I made during the year 2003, is
an attempt to relive the past:
- Recent Cambodian history. The film includes footage from 1975 of
Phnom Penh as a ghost town deserted by its inhabitants, and rare if not
unique footage shot inside the French Embassy when around 3,000 people,
foreigners and Cambodians, took refuge from the invading Khmer Rouges
army.
- Biodata. I revisited the place where I was detained, perhaps in an
attempt to purge the ghosts.
- The past of Douch, the KR officer in charge of the camp where I was
imprisoned and later Director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where
he tortured and killed tens of thousands in the name of an ideology.
Towards the end of the film, there is a brief meeting I had with Douch
in Tuol Sleng, where he is now in prison awaiting his trial by the war
crimes tribunal.
When I was captured in 1971 and taken to the Anlong Veng prison camp,
they told me the reason I was detained was "because I was a spy working
for the CIA". Douch, the camp KR, interrogated me for 3 months in an
attempt to get me to confess. However, rather than beating me, which,
as I was to later discover, was the usual way of extracting
confessions, he choose to ask me
questions about myself and my work in Cambodia. Eventually, this gave
me the opportunity to ask him questions about himself, his background
and his thoughts, particularly about the revolution. As a consequence
of these interrogation sessions, and conversations that took place more
informally, I obliged him to do what a killer should never do - to look
at me, to see me, to humanize his victim, and I obliged myself to look
at him, to see him, and to humanize my torturer.
As he questioned me he started to see and to know the young guy I was;
the father, the researcher, and he eventually decided, because he came
to believe me when I said that I was not working for the CIA, that I
should not be executed. As I questioned him I looked at my potential
executioner and started to see the man, the truth seeker, the young
revolutionary, like many others, and not so different than me after
all. That realization came as a shock; one from which I have still not
recovered. To approach a
monster, to humanize a monster, and at the same time to meet a
man. Douch became my liberator because he was a truth seeker.
Once he believed that what I told him - that I was not working for the
CIA and that I was who I said I was, was the truth then to have me
executed would have been contrary to the fundamental ideals of the
revolution.
In "Beyond the Gate", in trying to understand Douch, I do not try to
minimise his culpability; everyone is responsible of what they do.
Trying to understand is not trying to forgive. This film is also a
quest to see beyond Douch and show what we may all be capable of.
After an extended question and answer session, the meeting adjourned to
the Alliance Cafeteria where members of the audience engaged
François in more informal discussion over drinks and snacks.
Film reviews of 'Beyond the Gate' can be found at:
http://www.webeustache.com/fiche-de-film.php?id=602
http://www.artepro.com/programmes/91769/presentation.htm
http://www.fipa.tm.fr/programmes/en?2005fip_12469
http://inatheque.ina.fr/SEARCH/BASIS/dltv/dlweb/dl/DDW?W%3DCANAL++%3D
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