New Year Baby

back

Produced by

Charles Vogl
Jason Bolling
Socheata Poeuv

Directed by

Socheata Poeuv

Music

Gil Talmi

Film Editing

Sandra Christie

Sound

Nathan Smith

Special Effects

Paul & Sandra Fierlinger

Language: English and Khmer

Subtitles: English

Genre

Documentary

Filmmaker Notes

This is the first documentary directed by a Cambodian-American woman about her family's survival.

New Year Baby is a story of love, joy, and pardon about a family’s survival from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. I was born on Cambodian New Year in a Thai refugee camp and my parents never told me how I got there. New Year Baby is my personal documentary - a search for the truth about how my family survived the Khmer Rouge genocide and why they buried the truth for so long.

My parents used to embarrass me. They were oddballs, awkward immigrants who still fermented fish in the kitchen and sprouted mung beans in the bathtub.

All this time, I thought they were holding me back. The truth is my parents carried me further than I can imagine -- across the border, over landmines and across the ocean to a new life in America. My birth marked the end of the horror and the beginning of a future.

Before I knew their story, I couldn't even see my parents for who they are. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that the secrets they held in shame also proved their great heroism.

Related Films


Sixth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival collection	Vanishing Cultures: Bushmen of the Kalahari	Drinking Tea	Super Milk Chan - complete collection	Piece by Piece (Subtitled in Deutsch / German)	Young Agrarians	Relocated Mountain	The Heavenly Kings (Simple Chinese Subtitled)

back

Sections

Personal tools

New Year Baby