Did you hear about the forgotten room?”
I was asked this question on Street 200, a lush strip that runs through a central Phnom Penh neighbourhood like a vein. The street is sprinkled with institutions related to the Cambodian film industry. For generations, it has supported a community of filmmakers and artists. In light of Phnom Penh’s rapid development, it is more relevant than ever to explore how urban spaces can build community. Could Street 200 teach us how to do this, and what does a forgotten room have to do with it?
In 1979, Street 200 and its neighbourhood saw the re-establishment of the Cambodian Cinema Department, later followed by Institut français du Cambodge (also known as the French Institute), the Cambodia Film Commission, the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center and CineHub, a community house for filmmakers. With only 20 per cent of the industry’s professionals surviving the Khmer Rouge genocide, the neighbourhood soon became the place for the decimated Cambodian film industry to rebuild itself.
LinDa Saphan is an associate professor in sociology at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York. “What is unique about Phnom Penh is that its built environment has not been destroyed. It’s been repopulated by a whole new population,” she says. She characterises the situation after the Khmer Rouge as a “migration scenario” where people relocated and created new networks.
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- Tags: Cambodia, Issue 33, Malin Annie Jansson