TENTH ANNIVERSARY FOR PHOTO FEST

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Angkor Photo Festival to be held in town from November 29 to December 6.

The program preview for this year has just been released and, as expected with the tenth anniversary, the program is bigger than ever.

In the preview, organisers say that the emphasis on education “has become an increasingly critical part” of the festival. To that end it’s noted that the week-long celebration is formally titled, ‘Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops.’

And leading the bill in the preview is news about the workshops themselves: thirty workshop participants have been selected and named in the preview and they come from 14 countries in the Asia region, with only one participant, Touch Salyniroth representing Cambodia.

The workshops will be led by six tutors: Antoine D’Agata, Ian Teh, Kosuke Okahar, Patrick de Noirmont, Sohrab Hura and Suthep Krtisanavarin.

Eleven exhibitions will be held during the festival week, including one Cambodian, Kim Hak , whose exhibition will be titled Alive.

There’s also an exhaustive list of projections – about 130 of them – scheduled to be shown to festival attendees. Organisers point out that this year they received a record number of submission, more than 1700, from 82 countries.

A new feature of this year’s festival will be the ‘The Impact Project,’ billed as a “brand new themed projection evening which highlights stories about individuals, groups, or small organisations working to make a positive impact on social and environmental issues.”

The festival also hosts a ten-day workshop tutoring over 50 children from Anjali House, an NGO that is an offshoot from the festival itself providing for former street children.

BlowUp Angkor is again a feature of the festival, with its pop-up street exhibitions and roving mobile projections throughout Siem Reap.

Organisers will reveal more details and events next month.

LOST CITY BBC TV EPISODE AIRS

Something to watch out for on TV: on Thursday September 25 (time to be confirmed) BBC2 is broadcasting episode 1 of its two-part series about the ancient city ruins found near Angkor. Episode 1 is titled Angkor Wat’s Hidden Megacity.

The broadcaster’s blurb says, “In the first of this two-part series, an international team of archaeologists and scientists use revolutionary technology to reveal the true scale and extent of the lost city of Angkor and to find out how its people lived and died.

“Using a new laser scanning technology called Lidar, they discover the secrets of this forgotten civilisation. The laser beams penetrate the dense jungle canopy to reveal the ghostly footprint of the lost city beneath the trees.”

Episode two is titled: The Death of Angkor Wat’s Megacity. Day and time of broadcast still to be confirmed.

RONNIE YIMSUT HAPPY OVER COURT WIN

The Siem Reap Provincial Court finally released a verdict in the case relating to Bakong Technical College founder and manager Yimsut Ronakchet, better known as Ronnie Yimsut, and his fiancée, Eam Sokhym.

The two were found not guilty of three criminal charges including falsified public documents, cursing in public, and defamation.

They were accused by Ms Chea Sa-eng, an ex-director of BTC in Siem Reap.

“So we have won the case, basically, as we had enough evidence to prove to the court. This is good news and a great relief,” Yimsut told reporter Thik Kaliyann.

But he said he was unsure when construction could restart as this depends on court permits.

“We shall first ask the court for legal ‘caretaker role, to protect our assets, until the legal proceedings are fully completed.” he said. “We hope to regain the BTC campus and BTC Siem Reap NGO that we established. We hope to finish building and to move the program forward.”