Photo by: Photo Supplied

Stills from Catherine Fillou’s plays Photographs From S-21 and Ten Gems on a Thread. Fillou’s work features heavily in the Cambodian chapter of the documentary Acting Together on the World Stage, which premieres at the Bophana Audio Visual Resource Centre on Saturday. 

Bophana Audio Visual Resource Centre will hold a free screening of the documentary Acting Together on the World Stage this Saturday, featuring interviews with “artists and peace-builders” working in conflict zones around the world.

A joint production by Brandeis University and Theatre Without Borders, Acting Together on the World Stage is comprised of nine smaller short films, assembled into one feature-length documentary over six years by US film-maker Allison Lund.

The documentary is being shown around the world as part of the larger “Acting Together Project”, which aims to “promote the use of creativity to transform conflict”.

The nine small films that make up Acting Together on the World Stage are based on interviews with human- rights activists, musicians and artists, ranging from Aboriginal elders in Australia and the president of Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to teenage rappers in refugee camps in Ghana and  Tamil theatre artists in Sri Lanka.

Among those involved in a Cambodian chapter of the documentary is playwright Catherine Filloux, famous for her work in the Cambodian theatre industry and  author of the play Where Elephants Weep, which premiered in Phnom Penh in 2008.

Filloux also contributed a chapter in a separate published anthology, titled Acting Together: Performance and Creative Transformat-ion of Conflict, copies of which will be available after the show.

The screening will be foll-owed by a Q & A session led by Seng Theary,  president of the Centre for Cambodian Civic Education.

Acting Together  Project spokesperson Loren Plumb told The Phnom Penh Post she was excited to see the documentary screen in Cambodia for the first time.

“The film features a story segment on Cambodia, so we wanted very much to be able to hold a screening here.

“The film lets local people learn how communities around the world address legacies of violence. They can consider some of the approaches from other places to see if any ideas might be adapted to Cambodia, and learn that Cambodian artists are models for people in conflict regions,” she said.

Screenings of the documentary are also planned in the US,  Serbia, New Zealand and Kenya early next year.

Chea  Sopheap, a research analyst at the Bophana Centre, said he anticipated a large turnout for the  4pm screening of the film, which  will later be digitised and included on Bophana’s publicly available  film database.