Image: Southeast Asia Gloabe

Marc Eberle
July 9, 2019

“In the left hand you hold the gun, in the other you hold the camera. If you are not shooting with the camera, you are shooting with the gun”

“There were about 20 students for hands-on training,”he said. “We used black and white Orwo film from East Germany. At the time you still had to wind up the Bolex cameras. We didn’t have a light metre and worked out the aperture by holding out our hand and, according to the light reflection on our wrists, guessed the f-stop.”

"After four months’ training, OP’s team and nine others were sent to the frontline. It was 1971, almost a year after General Lon Nol launched his coup and ousted Prince Sihanouk. For four years, OP filmed battles between the Khmer Rouge and government troops, and later the Vietnamese."

"OP claims to have witnessed more than 20 battles between Khmer Rouge troops and those of Lon Nol. Ambushes on the Mekong were some of his favourites. “They would transport goods to Kratie. We had advance knowledge of battle positions and went there ahead of the battle and set up everything."

"In March 1975 he arrived in a besieged Phnom Penh. “We didn’t know what day it was, but I remember that I arrived at 3pm at a spot where the Japanese Bridge is today. We came by boat. There were many Khmer Rouge spies in civilian clothes. I hid the camera and went back to the jungle.

"In 1976, after Phnom Penh had been virtually emptied of its population, OP attended a party rally at the Olympic Stadium. It was packed, and OP sat in front, 30 metres from the podium where the leaders were sitting. It was the first time he learned that the brotherly relationship of the Khmer Rouge with North Vietnam was no more. It was also the first time he saw Pol Pot, Brother Number One."

"After 1975, Chinese advisers arrived in Cambodia and set up a film lab in Phnom Penh. Most of the time OP worked in the lab developing films. “It was so peaceful. We were only allowed to walk from our sleeping quarters to the place where we worked. There was no bank, no cyclo, no nothing. The KR had cooking units and you had to take your own spoon and plate. "

"“We reached a camp, I believe it was Site 2, where there were a lot of NGOs and foreigners. I just registered my name, told them some things about my background and then they processed us. After I arrived in the other country I asked people: ‘Is this Germany? France?’ They told me: ‘No, this is America’.”

Full article https://southeastasiaglobe.com/talking- ... filmmaker/

The article says OP is 46 and joined the revolution in 1970? It also has a picture of Pol Pot with his "grandchildren", even though he only ever had one child who was a minor when he died.