White Building
Kavich Neang
Anti-Archive: 2021

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History can be indifferent and unreliable. There’s no need to tell this to the many citizens of Phnom Penh who thought they had found their homes, long ago, only to find them now threatened as global capital floods the city, tearing down the old and developing the new, higher and higher. How does this redevelopment mark a change to Cambodia? What does starting over mean for those displaced?

In his beautiful new film, White Building, Kavich Neang tells the story of one young man in this situation. The film’s hero is Samnang (Piseth Chhun), a cheerful twenty-year-old who lives with his close-knit family and dreams of winning fame in a dance contest with his two best friends, Tol (Sovann Tho) and Ah Kha (Chinnaro Soem). But Samnang’s aspirations are soon jeopardised. A Japanese development company has purchased the dilapidated apartment building in which they have all lived for years, and they are to be evicted. Reimbursed with just a fraction of their homes’ worth, they will have to separate, and some will be unable even to remain in Phnom Penh. Neang took inspiration from his own experience as a lifelong resident of Phnom Penh’s White Building, which was demolished in 2017.

• Tags: Cambodia, Issue 25, Joseph Mai, Kavich Neang