Present: Michael LaRocca, Heike Löschmann, John Cadet, Edward van Tuyll,
Olivier Evrard, Michael Williams, Renee Vines, Hannah Rumble, Richard
Bieda, Oliver Hargreave, Patrice Victa, Mathilde Mahon, Ricky Ward, Marc
Callermart, Ray Kanlig, Jesse Kus, Carol and Bob Stratton, Peter Schupp,
Klaus Berkmüller, Andy Northrop, Jessica Loh, Eva Pascal, Adam Dedman, John
Butt, Elizabeth Melchionna, Guy Cardinal, Richard Nelson-Jones, Lorenz
Ferrari, Peter Holmston, Diamond, Lae Lae, Klaus Bettenhausen, Malay Chan,
Su Mon Aye, David Steane, Valeria Tancred, Tom Fawthrop, Dirk De Guyper,
Cathy Harbour, Guillaume Bagneris, Catherine Nesbit, Hans and Saengdao
Bänziger, Saw Poe Zaw, Doi Doi, Patrick McGowan, Michael Tuckson, Tony and
Supan Kidd, Margaret Deelman, Glynn Morgan, Thomas Ohlson, Bonnie Brereton,
Carool Kersten, Robert M. Boer, Sophie Le Creu, Suphak Nosten, Camille
Callermart, Eva Leyenne, Mututu, Noreen, Mook Paw, Jay Rabin, Kim Nielsen,
Colin Hinshelwood, Katie Wood, Htan Dah, Kalyani McCullough, Hnin Hnin Aye,
Nosten, Nancy Eberhardt. An audience of 72.
François Bizot's introduction to the film
I went to Cambodia in 1965 and stayed until 1975, then in Thailand until
1994, then in Laos. It is good to be back in Chiang Mai. "Beyond the Gate",
the film I made during the year 2003, is an attempt to relive the past:
- Recent Cambodian history. The film includes footage from 1975 of Phnom
Penh as a ghost town deserted by its inhabitants, and rare if not unique
footage shot inside the French Embassy when around 3,000 people, foreigners
and Cambodians, took refuge from the invading Khmer Rouges army.
- Biodata. I revisited the place where I was detained, perhaps in an
attempt to purge the ghosts.
- The past of Douch, the KR officer in charge of the camp where I was
imprisoned and later Director of the infamous Tuol Sleng prison, where he
tortured and killed tens of thousands in the name of an ideology. Towards
the end of the film, there is a brief meeting I had with Douch in Tuol
Sleng, where he is now in prison awaiting his trial by the war crimes
tribunal.
When I was captured in 1971 and taken to the Anlong Veng prison camp, they
told me the reason I was detained was "because I was a spy working for the
CIA". Douch, the camp KR, interrogated me for 3 months in an attempt to get
me to confess. However, rather than beating me, which, as I was to later
discover, was the usual way of extracting confessions, he choose to ask me
questions about myself and my work in Cambodia. Eventually, this gave me
the opportunity to ask him questions about himself, his background and his
thoughts, particularly about the revolution. As a consequence of these
interrogation sessions, and conversations that took place more informally,
I obliged him to do what a killer should never do - to look at me, to see
me, to humanize his victim, and I obliged myself to look at him, to see
him, and to humanize my torturer.
As he questioned me he started to see and to know the young guy I was; the
father, the researcher, and he eventually decided, because he came to
believe me when I said that I was not working for the CIA, that I should
not be executed. As I questioned him I looked at my potential executioner
and started to see the man, the truth seeker, the young revolutionary, like
many others, and not so different than me after all. That realization came
as a shock; one from which I have still not recovered. To approach a
monster, to humanize a monster, and at the same time to meet a man. Douch
became my liberator because he was a truth seeker. Once he believed that
what I told him - that I was not working for the CIA and that I was who I
said I was, was the truth then to have me executed would have been contrary
to the fundamental ideals of the revolution.
In "Beyond the Gate", in trying to understand Douch, I do not try to
minimise his culpability; everyone is responsible of what they do. Trying
to understand is not trying to forgive. This film is also a quest to see
beyond Douch and show what we may all be capable of.
After an extended question and answer session, the meeting adjourned to the
Alliance Cafeteria where members of the audience engaged François in more
informal discussion over drinks and snacks.
Film reviews of 'Beyond the Gate' can be found at:
http://www.webeustache.com/fiche-de-film.php?id=602
http://www.artepro.com/programmes/91769/presentation.htm
http://www.fipa.tm.fr/programmes/en?2005fip_12469
http://inatheque.ina.fr/SEARCH/BASIS/dltv/dlweb/dl/DDW?W%3DCANAL++%3D
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