Roland Joffe · 1984 · survival
Roland Joffe's 1984 film, based on true events. As the Khmer Rouge take Phnom Penh in 1975, the American journalist Sydney Schanberg is evacuated but his Cambodian colleague Dith Pran is left behind, swept into the forced-labor camps of the countryside. Through years of starvation and terror amid the killing fields, Pran survives and makes a desperate escape across the border to a refugee camp in Thailand.
- 1Phnom Penh
The Cambodian capital where journalist Dith Pran works alongside the American reporter Schanberg, until the victorious Khmer Rouge empty the city and Pran is separated and left behind.
- 2The labor camps
The countryside collectives where Pran endures years of starvation, indoctrination and mass killing, hiding his past and his intellect to survive the killing fields of the Cambodian genocide.
- 3Thai border
The refugee camp across the frontier in Thailand that Pran finally reaches after a harrowing solo escape through the jungle and past the corpse-strewn fields, and a reunion at last.