Rithy Panh

Rithy Panh (born 18 April 1964 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia) is a Cambodian‑French documentary filmmaker, author, and screenwriter whose work is intimately bound to the trauma of the Khmer Rouge era. His family was expelled from the capital in 1975, and over the following years his parents, sisters and nephews perished from starvation and exhaustion in a remote labor camp. After surviving the genocide, Panh fled to Thailand in 1979, spent time in a refugee camp, and eventually resettled in Paris where he attended a vocational carpentry school before receiving a video camera that ignited his passion for cinema. He later graduated from the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, returning to Cambodia in 1990 while keeping Paris as a base, and thus began a career dedicated to bearing witness to Cambodia’s painful recent history. The personal loss he endured gives his documentaries an authoritative voice, blending personal testimony with rigorous historical inquiry.

In the decades that followed, Panh produced a series of critically acclaimed films that have earned international honors. His debut, Site 2 (1989), won the Grand Prix du Documentaire at Amiens, and Rice People (1994) broke ground as the first Cambodian film submitted for an Oscar. Subsequent works such as S‑21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003), The Burnt Theatre (2005), and The Missing Picture (2013) (which won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize and received an Academy Award nomination) solidified his reputation as a master of docudrama. Beyond directing, he co‑founded the Bophana Center in Phnom Penh to preserve the nation’s audiovisual heritage, and he has remained an outspoken advocate for human rights, signing a 2023 open letter demanding a cease‑fire in Gaza. In 2025 he was announced as president of the jury for the 78th Locarno Film Festival, underscoring his lasting influence on world cinema.