A true story about two girls struggling hard for their love. This documentary won the first price at Meta House Phnom Penh for the Gay Pride Festival in May, 2012. This film was premier in South-East Asia festivals. Also screened in Berlin at the “Berlinale Panorama Film Festival” in February, 2013 which one of the biggest festival in the world. And now still going on in Europe & USA.
Here is the trailer:
They met during the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, when coincidence led them to live in the same mobile unit. After a year Soth Yun (57) and Sem Eang (58) realized that they loved each other.
Two million people died during the Khmer Rouge years. Yun and Eang survived.
Today the lesbian couple live in a village in Takeo province in southern Cambodia like husband and wife. It has been a long fight to be respected by fellow villagers and their families. And the fight continues – now for their rights to marry.
The couple does not have children of their own, but have raised several nieces and nephew.
This 11 minutes long documentary was screened twice at Meta House in Phnom Penh in May and June, 2012.
Soth Yun and Sem Eang have struggled for their relationship since they met during the Khmer Rouge years.
TWO GIRLS AGAINST THE RAIN
(Cambodia, 2012, 11 mins)
by Sao Sopheak
After almost 30 years of civil war and the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in the world. Traditional values and customs such as arranged marriages are upheld. Same-sex sexual activity is legal when it involves non-commercial acts between consenting adults in private. While traditional cultural mores tend to be tolerant in this area, even expressly providing support for people of an intermediate or third gender, LGBT rights legislation has not yet been enacted by the ruling government.
The short documentary TWO GIRLS AGAINST THE RAIN by Cambodian female filmmaker Sao Sopheak (30) is the first locally produced documentary, which gives a voice to members of the lesbian community.
It is s true story about two women struggling hard for their love. Soth Yun (57) and Sem Eang (58) met during the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, where more than two million people died. Soth and Sem survived. Today the couple lives in a village in Takeo province in southern Cambodia, approximately 40 kilometers away from the capital Phnom Penh. They do not have children of their own, but have raised several nieces and nephew. Theirs has been a long fight against stigmatization by fellow villagers and their family. And the fight continues – now for the right to marry legally.
The film was screened at:
- Meta House Phnom Penh @ Gay Pride, May 2012 (Cambodia)
- Yxineff short film festival, September 2012 (HCMC, Vietnam)
- HANIFF film festival Asia Pacific, November 2012 (Hanoi, Vietnam)
- Chop Shots South-East Asia, December 2012 (Jakarta, Indonesia)
- Film Society Lincoln Center, April 2013 (New York, USA)
Director’s Statement
Discrimination towards the LGBT community in Cambodia is not on the same publicly homophobic and violent scale as in other countries. This is linked to the country’s official religion, Buddhism, which is more tolerant of homosexuality. Our constitution guarantees all citizens rights, to enjoy those rights no matter what your sexual orientation.
While political figures have generally been tolerant of homosexuality, there have been some notable exceptions, for instance, when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly disowned his lesbian daughter. This also suggests a less tolerant environment. Homophobia is also particularly pronounced within the family. For lesbians, there is no mechanism for them to come out and express what they are suffering. They are also committing suicide or running away from home because they are being forced to marry. Cambodian society is generally tolerant of male homosexual behavior if it does not affect the traditional family structure. Women, who are expected to marry young and have children, are faced with more family pressures.
One critical way to combat homophobia in the family in Cambodia, particularly for lesbians, is to focus on helping LGBT members become economically independent. Everyone, like most Cambodians, is poverty challenged. People just want to be able to have a decent life, so they need decent work. One hugely effective way of getting family acceptance in Cambodia is to have a job, to be able to help your family very practically.
Currently I am developing the script for the first feature-length-documentary about Cambodia’s LGBT scene, with the working title QUEER CAMBODIA: SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW. I will continue to work with my two protagonists, whose niece has just given birth to a baby daughter, as well as follow the lives of a transgender prostitute-turned-street worker and a young queer activist. Their stories will be interwoven.
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