The opening film for the 36th Venice International Film Critics’ Week this year will be Karmalink, a sci-fi movie shot in Cambodia by the American director Jake Wachtel.

Nearly 600 films from 75 countries were submitted for consideration for the festival this year, which takes place annually in Venice, Italy, and this year runs from September 1-11.

The Venice International Film Critics’ Week is an independent and parallel section of the Venice International Film Festival organised by the Italian film critics’ union. The programme includes a selection of seven debut films in competition and two special events out of competition.

Produced by Los Angeles-based Valerie Steinberg Productions, the cast of Karmalink features Wachtel’s former students that he met while volunteering as a teacher in an underprivileged community in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian director-producer Sok Visal of 802 Films also served as one of the co-producers on the film, which marks Wachtel’s feature-length debut as a director.

“It’s incredibly exciting, gratifying and a huge honour. It’s a lot of validation for the tremendous amounts of hard work that a big group of collaborators put into turning this dream into a reality. I’ve been working on it for six years and to now have this platform for sharing it with the world is very exciting,” Wachtel tells The Post.

Early buzz around the film has been building following its selection to open critics’ week at the Venice festival.

“The reason why Karmalink was chosen was I think because it really resonated with the programmers for Venice Critics’ Week. And I think it resonated because it’s something really fresh and different—people haven’t seen a Cambodian sci-fi film before,” says Wachtel, who also wrote the screenplay for the film.

The film is set in a dystopian near-future where the rich and privileged are augmented with nano-technology and skyscrapers crowd the skyline. Far down below the penthouses, however, are the poor communities who have been left behind by all of this development.

One of them – Tralok Bek – is facing forced evictions, including the family of 13-year-old Leng Heng, who begins having vivid dreams about his past lives. He and his friends become convinced that if they find a buried Buddhist statue it will save their homes and they seek out the help of Srey Leak, a street smart neighbourhood girl.

“Together they follow clues across town and into the past. As Leng Heng’s dreams converge on the present, his very sense of identity begins to unravel. When it becomes clear that the stakes are higher than they imagined, the two friends must decide how far they are willing to go to find their treasure and the truth,” the film’s official synopsis explains.

Cambodian co-producer Sok Visal tells The Post that “in traditional Buddhism, karma refers to action driven by intention which leads to future consequences. The actions from a previous life can impact your current life and your actions in this life can affect your next life ... [Karmalink] takes these traditional Buddhist beliefs and connects them to modern topics like science, technology and virtual reality.”

Wachtel explains that Cambodia to him feels like a place where the old and the new coexist in really fascinating ways because it’s a place that’s speeding into the future very quickly and changing very rapidly, causing this sensation of overlapping eras and making it a natural setting for a sci-fi film, despite what some may think.

“The reality is that science-fiction movies aren’t often set in places like Cambodia, and people have this idea, perhaps, that Cambodia is not the right place for it because it’s not all high-tech or something like that – but that’s just totally false and I hope this movie can be part of a conversation that changes some people’s ideas about Cambodia,” Wachtel says.

The film’s two main protagonists – Srey Leak Chhith and Leng Heng Prak – are Cambodians with the same names as the child-actors portraying them. And both grew up in the Tralop Bek neighbourhood of Phnom Penh, the future version of which provides the setting for Karmalink.

Srey Leak and Leng Heng got their first taste of acting as students in Wachtel’s filmmaking class in 2014-2015, but these are the first roles they’ve ever had in a professional film, as one might expect.

“I have high hopes for this movie. I’m really hoping that it can appeal to a global audience and also to a Cambodian audience. I put a lot of thought and care and heart into it. I wanted to tell a story that really honours the experiences of Cambodians and I hope that it is something that [Cambodians] will be proud of in the same way that I’m proud of it,” says Wachtel.

Wachtel explains that for the past few decades the way much of the rest of the world primarily understood Cambodia was through the lens of the tragic Khmer Rouge period or further back in history through the lens of the Angkorian era.

“It’s really important that those stories continue to be told, but I felt like there was something missing or incomplete from that picture. With Karmalink, I wanted to look towards the future and talk about what direction people are heading in Cambodia and where we are heading as a global society,” Wachtel says.

Whether Cambodian audiences will embrace the film or ignore it remains a total unknown, even to the Cambodian film-industry veteran who was one of its co-producers.

“I honestly have no idea how much interest they are going to have in this movie. I’m very curious about that myself. It’s the first science-fiction movie ever that is set in Cambodia with Khmer actors and characters,” says Visal.

Visal points out that the film is not a stereotypical romance or comedy movie, which is the light fare that typically finds favour with Cambodian audiences. Nor is it a drama about historical events of the recent past like most of the more well-known films set in Cambodia over the years. It is science-fiction, which some older Cambodians may associate more with children’s cartoons than serious art.

“For people who love technology and are open to something different, this film will be the best for them and they will definitely be into it. I hope that Cambodians can look past the film’s genre and truly absorb the meaning of the story.

“Still we are talking about a film that was produced in Cambodia with Khmer actors and most of the film crew were Cambodians as well, so that alone should draw some interest. Regardless, I’m thrilled and proud to have worked on a film that has made it into a major international festival,” Visal says.

Wachtel says that people should stay tuned for news about the Cambodian premiere of the film, though he isn’t entirely sure when that will be due to the pandemic.

Many film festivals are still doing online or virtual screenings but Wachtel says he’s really happy that he gets to debut the movie in front of a live audience in a real cinema.

“This is a science-fiction movie. So there are lots of special effects, and we put a lot of work into the sound design. All these aspects that just really can be the best versions of themselves when seen on the big screen in the theatre,” Wachtel says.

Wachtel says he is hopeful that Cambodia’s cinemas will reopen in time for his film to make it into them, noting Cambodia’s rapid progress with vaccinating its population – especially as compared to other developing countries – as the main reason for his optimism.

“The moment in the life of this film that I am most excited for is when Cambodians get to see this on the big screen because it’s epic and fun and full of adventure, but also doing something new that really hasn’t been seen in Cambodian cinemas,” he says.

Keep reading The Post for updates on the Cambodian premiere or check out the official website to learn more: https://www.valeriesteinberg.com/karmalink