Exclusive Interview with Angelina Jolie - First They Killed My Father's Director

The film "First They Killed My Father" is the first major contemporary film in Cambodia that takes the audience back to the darkest past of Cambodia's genocide Khmer Rouge. With the painful past and memories, most of survived Cambodians would never ever want to bring up this topic. However, this film received a lot of support and popularity among Cambodian across all generations. This film has done a great job in portraying the situation and condition of people's daily life under Khmer Rouge Regime.

"First They Killed My Father" tells the story of a young survivor named Loung Ung. This film is an adaptation of the book with the same title, and Loung is also the author as well. She is also the co-writer of the movie script with the film's director Angelina Jolie. With the stardom of Angelina Jolie as the director, this film had been the center of attention among every people in Cambodia and the international press. Everyone is looking forward to this film. As the result, this film is very quite popular in Cambodia. It was also released on the big online streaming service such as Netflix which is also the production company behind this film. Along with big international film production, a local production Bophana Production is also a part of this film's success. This gives an opportunity for the local film crew to learn from big production standards and get exposed on the international stage. For all of these reasons, this movie could be considered as one of the most successful films in Cambodia since it received both national and international recognition.

With the booming success of this film on both the national and international stages, I decided to reach out to Angelina Jolie, the director of First They Kill My Father. To my very surprise, she actually accepted my interview invitation. Below is my exclusive 4-minute interview with her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZb7Gfrjsrk

The success of this film is not only a success for the crew and production team only. It is a success for Cambodia's country as a whole. Digging into the painful past is not something that everyone loves to do. But this film not only received popularity and acceptance from the survivor of this regime, those survivors also encourage more and more storytelling to the younger generation. Moreover, this film also paved the way for Cambodia's film industry on the international stage. So do you also think that First They Killed My Father paved the way for the bright future of Cambodia? Feel free to share your opinion in the comment below!