Asia House Film Festival: The Last Reel + director Q&A *European Premiere*

European Premiere
The Last Reel + director Q&A
(Kulikar Sotho, Cambodia, 2014) 105 mins

A story set across two very different worlds, brought together by a young woman’s chance discovery of a derelict cinema holding an incomplete print of a 1970s melodrama from Cambodian cinema’s glamorous pre- Khmer Rouge golden age, starring her now ailing mother. Assisted by the cinema’s elderly projectionist, she tries to recreate the missing final reel, adopting the central role, in an attempt to heal the psychological scars still haunting her mother. The premiere, some 40 years after the initial shoot, unearths family secrets and multiple readings of a bloody and tragic past buried beneath the killing fields.

Harking back to a vibrant heyday of Khmer filmmaking all but erased by Pol Pot’s regime while suggesting ways forward, this powerful drama provides a wonderful introduction to the cultures and landscapes of contemporary Cambodia, and saw first-time director Kulikar Sotho winning the Spirit of Asia Award at Tokyo International Film Festival 2014. The director Kulikar Sotho will be in attendance.

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Asia House is thrilled to announce the full programme of its seventh annual Asia House Film Festival which will take place from 27 March to 31 March 2015, generously supported once again by Prudential plc. This year’s theme of New Generations reflects on new talents, new styles, new landscapes and new modes of film production from and about the Asia Pacific region – from Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesian, India, Japan and Uzbekistan, with a special focus and retrospective on Mongolia.

The festival includes an exciting selection of features, documentaries and shorts, including two European premieres, eight UK premieres and one London premiere, alongside a showcase of classic films. Asia House is also excited to announce this year’s festival venues: Ham Yard Theatre, Rich Mix, The Horse Hospital and the Cinema Museum