Showing
Carrying Pictures: A Case Study In Visual Politics
UK PremiereTom Holert | Germany | 11 mins
'Carrying Pictures' brings together excerpts from press photographs, fragments from a treatise on visual theory, and scenes from the feature film Under Fire (Roger Spottiswoode, USA 1983) into a paradidactic demonstration of the practices and practical knowledge in the visual spaces of the political. The unavoidably staged quality of such observations of a second or third order is emphasized by the original soundtrack by Robert and Roland Lippok (To Rococo Rot, Tarwater), which dramatises the text-image-event.
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About my Father
UK PremiereGuillaume Suon | Cambodia | 52 mins
Sunthary Phung-Guth is one of the first to have filed a brief against Duch, the former Khmer Rouge head of S21, pursued by an international tribunal for crimes against humanity and war.
She claimed damages on behalf of her father, Professor Phung Ton, a Cambodian intellectual and highly respected state official, arrested December 1976 and detained at the S21 security center under the identity “No. 17”.
Between 1975 and 1979, at least 16,000 people have been tortured and executed in this secret prison run by the accused.
How did Phung Ton die? Had he been tortured? Where was his body? For several years, this former French teacher has sought in vain for answers to these questions to honor the memory of her father; to put his soul to rest. “I want to give him his humanity back and make him revived. It is my duty as a daughter”, she explained of her impossible mourning.
Since the trial on March 30, 2009, Sunthary has occupied her civil party seat diligently. Determined, her eyes never leave the accused, while his also continuously search for hers’. Both are bound by Phung Ton. Referring to the case of the teacher, Duch burst into tears for the first time yet still he claims to know nothing about the professor’s detention. Sunthary rejects his denial, “I will never be satisfied with a simple passing of responsibility, it would be too easy.”
Throughout the hearings, Phung Ton’s case returns as a leitmotiv in discussions. “The teacher case” becomes a “Trial within a trial”. Outside the court, an intimate duel materializes between Sunthary and Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch.
The accused tried to persuade her of his goodwill by mail, but Sunthary continues to doubt his sincerity. He then sent a note with the names of three S21 guards to question. They know the truth, wrote the accused. Sunthary’s quest then met with
a second wind. She met the former jailers in the S21Prison, which is now a genocide museum. Face to face. Sunthary’s words gradually found freedom. But the executioners remained taciturn. “In these circumstances, forgiveness is impossible”,
states Sunthary.
On the basis of information distilled by the accused in court, relying on archives, photos, and testimonials, Sunthary traces the path of her father. The research is meticulous. But many questions remain unanswered. So, before the judges, Sunthary continues her struggle to the truth.
During her hearing on August 19, 2009, the screen at the court displays Phung Ton’s picture. He seems to be listening to the accused. “Duch may lie, but he cannot deceive the soul of my father”, she warned.
Through Sunthary’s story unfolds a major duty of international criminal courts: the analysis of crimes to abate survivors’ suffering and need for truth, moreover to recognize victims as such. Victims always haunted by the wandering souls of at least 1.7 million Cambodians.
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