November 2009
3 Generations
The organization 3 Generations also records stories of survivors of genocide and mass atrocities from all over the world. They are highlighting the work of Khmer Legacies on their website this month. We're hoping to create a collaboration with 3 Generations, an organization started by Jane Wells, the producer of The Devil Came on Horseback. 3 Generations will edit a short video of some of our testimonies and we'll help them transcribe some of their Cambodian videos. You can read the treatment here.
Witness Highlights Khmer Legacies
The human rights media organization Witness is highlighting the work of Khmer Legacies this month. They interviewed me about the role of video in human rights. You can read their treatment here. Thank you to Teague Schneiter for all of your hard work.
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October 2009
Podcast with US Holocaust Museum
The US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC just interviewed me for their podcast series, Voices on Genocide Prevention. You can listen to it here. Thank you to Bridget Conley-Zilkic for the interview!
Screening at UConn
 On Oct. 06, Van and I drove to Storrs, CT to show New Year Baby at the University of Connecticut. UConn has amazing support for Asian and Asian American students in the form of the Asian American Cultural Center, run by Angela Rola. I told Angela that I am jealous of the support they provide which exceeds what we enjoyed when I attended Smith College and even what I've observed here at Yale. Later, I learned that the center and changes to the student code regarding harassment were born out of a discrimination episode in 1987.
The screening was very well attended and an informal reception followed. I enjoyed meeting the students, a few of which had written papers about New Year Baby. I always get a kick out of hearing that! Thank you so much to Cathy Schlund-Vials who helped to initiate the event. I hope to visit UConn again!
Congratulations Bou Sonith!
 I am so proud to announce that one of my board members, Sonith Peou, has been honored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with a Community Health Leader Award. Here's an excerpt from RWJF's press release: "his efforts to assure access to culturally competent health services for the large Cambodian-American community in Lowell, Mass. The Metta Health Center integrates primary medical care, behavioral health services and refugee health assessments with traditional medical practices such as Buddhist monk consultations and traditional healing, acupuncture and nutrition counseling. Peou’s leadership and tenacious outreach efforts over eight years have resulted in a 150 percent increase in Southeast Asian patients, with the Metta Health Center now serving more than 5,000 patients."
I attended the gala in Washington, DC at the Mayflower Hotel where the awards were handed out and a video about each fellow was premiered.I am especially proud because I nominated him for the award. Congratulations Bou Sonith!
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September 2009
Genocide Documentary Filmmakers/Lovers of Life!
 I had the extraordinary opportunity to speak on a panel calledwith some very lauded documentary filmmakers at the USC Film School. Being asked by the Shoah Foundation to present and then of course to sit next to Emmy and Oscar winners was a huge honor.
We covered many subjects including the ethical and moral concerns of the video testimony process, the maintenance of video archives, and powerful role of documentary films in genocide activism.
After the panel all of us went to dinner together and dared each other to not talk about genocide for the entire evening. Though we strayed a few times to learn about our each others various "war stories," we mostly succeeded. Being socially conscious doesn't preclude being fun-loving too. I got home way too late that night.
You can watch a video to the panel discussion "Genocide Survivor Testimony in Documentary Film" here.
From left to right: Michael Renov, USC School of Cinematic Arts Associate Dean; Anne Aghion, filmmaker; Ted Braun, filmmaker; Socheata Poeuv, filmmaker, founder Khmer Legacies; Andi Gitow, UN Films; Karen Jungblut, Institute Director of Research and Documentation; James Moll, filmmaker; Stephen Smith, Institute Executive Director. |
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June 2009
Screening at Yale University
On June 13th New Year Baby will screen at the Whitney Humanity Center of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on "When Filmmakers Work With Refugees: Goals, Achievements, Dangers, Dissapointments" with filmmakers Christian Karim Chrobog, Socheata Poeuv, Zach Niles, and Charles Vogl. The event will be sponsored by the Yale Summer Film Institue and IRIS. For more information contact (888)-ART-IDEA (278-4332). |
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May 2009
Finally . . . We're Engaged!
 For those of you who know Charles, my longtime boyfriend and the producer of New Year Baby, and I, you will not be surprised to learn we recently got engaged.
To satisfy all of your curiosities, here is how it went down:
Charles and I met at the top of Duomo in Florence. We were both backpacking alone through Italy when I turned around and asked him to take my picture.
Well two weeks ago, Charles took me on a surprise date to the largest cathedral in New York City, St. John Divine. Under the dome of the cathedral, with a stringed orchestra in the background, he proposed. I was not entirely surprised, but was deeply moved.
Panels, Presentations, and Screenings
On May 27th UCLA will screen New Year Baby
On May 8th Socheata gave a presentation on rescuing behavior for the "Behavior of Rescuers of Genocide Victims" Colloquium at Yale University.
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April 2009
A Time to Remember
 Last week, my parents and I participated in several genocide commemoration events in Washington, DC. It was an honor to be able to represent the Cambodian survivor community at a Save Darfur event in front of the White House.
Although I have had the opportunity to speak many times in groups of 20-500, my parents are relatively meek immigrant Americans who have always shied away from the spotlight. The extent of their public speaking has come after a few screenings of New Year Baby when they answer questions from the audience.
My mother spoke briefly in English and then said a prayer in Khmer to remember the millions of lives lost during the Cambodian genocide.
;I'm very proud of them. They loved being a part of this event.
I also had the chance to meet Carl Wilkens, one of my personal heroes.  Just two weeks early, I had invoked Carl's story when speaking to college students at Babson College and UMass Amherst. Carl saved over 500 people during the
genocide in Rwanda, and he was the only American in the entire country during the 4 month tragedy. You can read more his story here.
We also joined 80 members of the Cambodian community to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the Cambodian genocide at a solemn candlelight vigil. We shared stories of our loved ones, our sorrows and even our anger at the lack of justice.
We visited the beautiful Cambodian Buddhist temple in Silver Spring, MD - the largest of its kind in the country. Celebrating Cambodian New Year was truly a pleasure there.
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March 2009
San Francisco
Recently Charles and I returned from San Francisco where I spoke on a symposium panel about refugee rights with the Rotary Club . It was a well-organized and well-run event. It's obvious that the Rotarians in San Francisco play their part to help alleviate suffering in the world.
While I was there, I recorded the interview of Denise Tan's mother, Sotheavy, about her amazing survival story. Denise made wonderful introductions for me to the Cambodian community in the Bay Area including the dynamic community leader Elizabeth Sy who founded Banteay Srei and social worker Limyi Heng.
Also through Denise, we met David Nakabayashi, Creative
Director at Industrial Light and Magic. He gave us a private tour of George Lucas's amazing special effects studio. It was a great thrill and we've already made many of our friends and family jealous. Thanks to David and his staff for their generosity.
And thank you to our wonderful friends Stephanie Morimoto and Matt King for hosting us in their beautiful home.
Focus Group in Lowell
This past weekend, I conducted a focus group in Lowell, MA, the second largest Cambodian community in the country. I regret not doing it a long time ago when I first conceived of Khmer Legacies.
With the help of Harry Schnur from the Lynn Community Health Center, Khmer Legacies Boardmembers Sonith Peou and Samkhann Khoeun, Linda Sou of Lowell Community Health, we conducted two separate focus groups - one with the older generation and one with the younger generation.
The reactions we got to the work of Khmer Legacies was overwhelming positive. Yes, this is important work and someone should be doing it. Yet there seemed to be so many questions about readiness. Are older survivors ready to talk? Is the younger generation ready to listen?
I began to question the nature of leadership itself. Is it the role of Khmer Legacies to draw the community toward a higher level of consciousness and contribution? Is that a presumptious and potentially dangerous position given the trauma the community has faced. Is the best way to serve the community to challenge it?
Any thoughts from you would be helpful . . .
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February 2009
NACA
Charles, Bjorn, Mabel and I attended NACA this past week in Nashville, TN. We met hundreds of college students from all around the world. We were there to introduce me to students and programmers who were looking to bring various educational and entertainment experiences to their campus.
I remember the first time I entered the marketplace. Housed in a huge hotel ballroom, hundreds of booths lined the room, all of them featuring some act which tried to catch the attention of overwhelmed and overstimulated college students.
I could not believe it but I was literally pitching my genocide work next to a Build-a-Bear workshop and live pythons. How could I compete? For a moment, I wished that I was marketing something sexy and appealing.
At the conference I heard Caryl M. Stern, the President of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, give an emotional talk about her work to save the lives of millions of children around the world. She gave a powerful appeal for the room to commit their lives to something bigger.
The talk reminded me that in terms of emotional impact, we have a huge advantage over all the hundreds of confections that are peddled at NACA. Ideas like justice and healing hit you deep and stay with you. They hold the possibility of changing the course of your life.
Thank you to all of the students I met last week! I hope to see you again.
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January 2009
Khmer Health Advocates
Last week I visited Khmer Health Advocates (www.hartnet.org/khmer) in West Hartford, CT. An organization that began its work in the early 1980's with the first wave of Cambodian refugees, the founders have been unflagging in their committment and dedication to the Cambodian community. Theanvy Kouch and Mary Scully are inspirational for their longevity and generosity.
They both voiced strong support for the work of Khmer Legacies and we hope to find ways to use their networks to record testimonies in Connecticut. Mary told me that although Cambodians make up about half of all torture victims in the United States, Cambodians are not categorically recognized as torture victims by the UN. Cambodians themselves, have a hard time articulating their experience of starvation, over work, and sometimes worse as torture. As a result, many resources that could have been directed to serve them are not.
It reminded me that this work is important - if only to document and acknowledge the lives to Cambodian survivors. As long as we are not able to give voice to these experiences, the community still suffers from an undistinguished pain.
First Board Meeting
We had our first board meeting ever this past Saturday. I was so nervous about the event. It is one of the necessary steps that any organization must take in order to run functionally.
And yet I had all of these anxieties and fears about the board members being disengaged in the work. I have heard so many horror stories of ineffective boards. I also feared that I am not a good enough leader to warrant the energy and trust of these important community leaders who spend their time doing such important work.
No matter how frightening, I had to pull the curtain behind the operations of Khmer Legacies since inception. But Jane Jung, a Yale MFA student who is helping me manage the board, reminded me that the board members want to see me and Khmer Legacies succeed.
And that was exactly the tone of the meeting. I am so glad to know they have my back!
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December 2008
EG
Charles and I went to the EG conference (www.the-eg.com) this past week. We had an amazing time. We really felt like we were meeting the Leonardo Da Vinci's of our time. Joshua Bell performed, Teller of Penn & Teller spoke, and Nicholas Negroponte inspired us all. I was told that you can view some of the presentations on the TED website (www.ted.com) in the coming days.
 I did not expect to find Cambodia connections there, but I did! Nina You, companion to Mike Hawley (the organizer of the conference), and her father. Sophal Ear and his expecting wife. DimitriNegroponte who lived and worked in Cambodia.
I also met the most amazing woman named Tan Le. She's aVietnamese Australian woman who co-founded a company called Emotiv (www.emotiv.com). Using the latest developments of neuro-technology, her company has developed a headset which facilitates non-conscious humancomputer interaction. Check it out - it's straight out of science fiction.
 The conference inspired me to take risks and play a big game with my life. The presenters and participants play at the highest level in several areas of the their life. To wit Mike Hawley - not only was he an MIT professor and entrepreneur, but also a champion of the Van Cliburn competition!
An Honor in Los Angeles
In November I went to Los Angeles to receive the iWitness Award from Jewish World Watch, an organization formed through a collaboration of Southern California synagogues concerned to raise consciousness about the mass killings in Darfur and about genocide throughout the world.
I was honored to be recognized by Jewish World Watch for the work I have done in launching Khmer Legacies, and was pleased to have the opportunity to speak to students and community leaders from the Cambodian community at the award ceremony.
While my short-term mission has been to preserve the testimonies of survivors and the history of Khmer Rouge atrocities, my long-term goal is to add the voices of Cambodians to the collective voice of communities speaking out against genocide. This conviction guides my own work as it does, I believe, the efforts of Jewish World Watch to raise a "call to conscience."
July 2008
A Producer's Note
I'm writing from my road trip and pilgrimage which in all will last 2.5 months and take me from Massachusetts to Texas and Calcutta, India with points in between. Today I'm in Madison, WI where I shot a bit on our new HDDV camera. Next week I will meet up with filmmakers Steve Bogner and Julia Reichert (LION IN THE HOUSE) in OH. This pilgrimage is the first time in over 4 years I have not worked on NYB daily. Even read a book for fun while staying with friend Pam Putney on an island in Massachusetts. Socheata Poeuv has been recongnized by strangers more than once now. Friday the dog is still more popular than I am.
New Year Baby DVD sales are so strong that as of Tues. night it is listed as a best selling film of more than 2,000 films on the FilmBaby.com website. We did not predict this. The film will be even more widely available next month. I am learning how many lives are influenced by this story from the notes that come in.
The final work on the Cambodian language version is underway.
I will be in Kerala, India next month with some of the NYB crew and donors. You can join us if you like.
http://www.LoveJoyPardon.com/India.
The New Year Baby Soundtrack is now available on iTunes
 
New Year Baby is now available at:-
- Renewal
Socheata Poeuv's Fellowship was renewed for 2008-2009 at the Yale Genocide Studies Program
-Charles H. Vogl
Producer
June 2008
Publicity and Learning
New Year Baby completes its national ITVS Community Cinema tour of 40 cities.
- Socheata Poeuv goes to the University of Wisconsin to attend SEASSI (Southeast Asian Studies Institute) Cambodian language training for 2 months.
- Socheata Poeuv interviewed on NPR programs HERE ON EARTH and THINK.
- New Year Baby covered in DALLAS MORNING NEWS, FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM, DENVER POST and others.
May 2008
A Month for Celebration
New Year Baby airs on National PBS Independent Lens May 27th
Producer Charles Vogl attends INPUT 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa as a CPB fellow
- NL3 Audio creates sound design for Cambodan language version.
- Director Socheata Poeuv attends screenings in Washington D.C., San Francisco & Los Angeles
- New Year Baby is finalist for INPUT 2008
Producer Charles Vogl finishes first year of divinity school!
April 2008
Various Happenings
- Socheta speaks to Boston College and Harvard University
- ITVS Community Screening series rolls out nationaly in the United States
- Find a screening: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/getinvolved/cinema/
- DVDs mastered by Cine-O-Matic and go into production
- Socheata Poeuv's new organization Khmer Legacies hosted it's first fundraising event in NYC- A South Eastern
Culinary Night- http://www.KhmerLegacies.org
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Cambodian language translation is recorded in New York and San Francisco coordinated by Envivo Live Media.
New Year Baby wins the AUDIENCE AWARD at the Wisconsin Film Festival
March 2008
A Courageous Soul
 My friend Bou Dith Pran died yesterday.
His life was depicted in the film, the Killing Fields. For most Americans, the first and perhaps only time, they heard about the Cambodian genocide was through his story.
I met Bou for the first time when I was 22 years old as a recent college graduate attending the Asian American Journalists Association convention. When I introduced myself to him, he was so excited to meet another Cambodian American journalist that he immediately took me by the hand to introduce me around to his friends. He's a hero in that community and immediately became my best advocate.
I invited him to dinner with my family because he was missing some good Southeast Asian cooking. At dinner my sister bluntly told him that she though her experience during the Pol Pot time was much worse than what was depicted in the movie, the Killing Fields. He looked her squarely in the eye and said that he agreed. And in that look, I recognized that there was an understanding.
He will be missed.
NYB Goes International, Gets Personal
New Year Baby airs nationally in the Netherlands
DVD extras are created
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- -Interview with Composer Gil Talmi
- -Interview with Animator Paul Fierlinger
- -Socheata's director commentary
February 2008
Asheville, NC - Keep it Weird
 Showed New Year Baby at the Fine Arts Theatre in Asheville, NC last night. Asheville is wonderful little mountain town with lefty tendencies, a lively art scene and eccentric townies.
The turnout was good and the audience seemed really moved and engaged with the film. A recurring theme in these screenings has been the one Cambodian in the audience. None of the stops on my Southern Circuit tour are home to large Cambodian communities. But there's always one.
He was very moved by the film and shared with the audience his family's story. When his mother was three months pregnant, her husband was killed by the Khmer Rouge. Instead of being named the "lucky child," he was repeatedly called a curse by his own mother. At the end of the night, all I could do was give him a hug.
Welcome to the South...
I had my first screening last night in High Point, NC as part of the Southern Circuit tour of independent filmmakers (www.southarts.org). For the next two weeks, I'll be showing New Year Baby in nine different cities. Good thing I got a massage yesterday (thank you John and Astrud!).
We had a modest crowd, but one audience member in particular made it all worth it. A Cambodian American woman in her 50's was there with a van-load of her Anglo American sponsors from a local Presbyterian church.
Her story was very similar to my family's: surviving the Khmer Rouge, adopted surviving extended family, fleeing to Thai refugee camps. She was very moved by the film and told me about her son who is very near my age. He harbors, she fears, a surprising anger projected toward Cambodia and life in general.
It reminded me that even the second generation is effected by the trauma of the Khmer Rouge time whether it is expressed in guilt, over-achievement, or anger. What makes it worse is that often times, we cannot identify what is at the root of these emotions.
I gave her a copy of the film and told her that perhaps her son would like to see the film, hoping it would spark a new kind of conversation. She seemed grateful.
Announcements
$8,000 matching grant offered for gifts toward outreach
The New York Times will profile Socheata Poeuv in March
Socheata spoke to her Alma Mater Smith College
DVD creation for home and educational use has begun
Socheata spoke at California State University Long Beach Genocide Conference
NEW YEAR BABY is the opening film for the Amnesty International Seattle Human Rights Film Festival
January 2008
Teachers, Broadcasts, and Profiles
National PBS Broadcast scheduled MAY 27th 2008 on
A note from a teacher:
Dear Socheata Poeuv,
My name is Victor Chacon and I am a school teacher at L.L. Hotchkiss Elementary School, Dallas, TX ...
My students are 9, 10, and 11 year-old newcomers from refugee camps. They are fromBurma , Thailand, Afghanistan , Iran , and Africa . I have students whose parents were born in refugee camps. They are very sweet and smart, ‘eager learners’… When they heard about you, their eyes grew with joy and excitement and they wanted to write a “book” to you. In this book, they want to write about their lives and add some pictures. They will be working on it during the next week and I will send it to you…
You are an inspiration and a model for them. They know now that there are people who faced similar experiences and have become very successful.
Sincerely,
Victor Chacon-Carrasco
ESL-Newcomer Teacher
L.L. Hotchkiss Elementary School
- Teachers & Organizations can create free Community Screenings
Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
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- http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/getinvolved/organize
- ITVS Community Cinema is a screening series of select films fromINDEPENDENT LENS. They work with local partnering organizations who want to show the film to their community. ITVS screenings are free, open to the public, and followed by a panel discussion or other presentation. ITVS provides local partnering organizations with a package of resources free of charge.
Other News:
- Socheata Poeuv profiled by http://www.changents.com as one of the nation's best young change agents
- The Smith Alumnae Quarterly profiled Socheata Poeuv and New Year Baby as a documentary filmmaker of social change.
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A Note From the Cambodian Language Screenings in Phnom Penh 
