{"id":1230,"date":"2017-09-05T23:28:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T23:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/arts-culture\/cambodia-town-film-festival-to-showcase-cambodian-history-with-surviving-bokator\/"},"modified":"2017-09-05T23:28:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T23:28:35","slug":"cambodia-town-film-festival-to-showcase-cambodian-history-with-surviving-bokator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/art\/cambodia-town-film-festival-to-showcase-cambodian-history-with-surviving-bokator","title":{"rendered":"Cambodia Town Film Festival to Showcase Cambodian History with \u2018Surviving Bokator\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now in its fifth year, the Cambodia Town Film Festival returns with a pre-release of \u201cSurviving Bokator\u201d, a documentary about a genocide survivor, San Kim Sean, who returns to Cambodia to resurrect the ancient style of fighting, to be screened Sunday, September 17 at 2:00PM at the Art Theatre.<\/p>\n

The Cambodia Town Film Festival is a four-day event, to be held September 14-17, that will introduce new studio and independent films and will showcase documentaries, foreign features and short films. Attendees will be able to participate in panel discussions and network with directors, producers, writers and actors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to give a platform for Cambodian and American storytelling and to bridge the gap from here to Cambodia,\u201d said Caylee So, director and one of the co-founders of the Cambodia Town Film Festival.<\/p>\n

The featured film chronicles Bokator, an ancient fighting style of the Khmer people in Cambodia that was almost lost in the Cambodian Genocide. According to the site Full Contact Martial Arts, Bokator can be translated to \u201clion fighter\u201d or \u201cpounding lion\u201d, as it is taken from the words bok<\/em> meaning to pound and tor<\/em> meaning lion.<\/p>\n

\"Bokator<\/p>\n

San Kim Sean sketching.<\/em><\/p>\n

The film also features female MMA fighter and rising action star, Tharoth \u201cLittle Frog\u201d Sam, who will be in attendance and will participate in a Q&A after the film.<\/p>\n

Sam will also be appearing in Angelina Jolie\u2019s \u201cFirst They Killed My Father\u201d, a bio-film about author and human rights activist Loung Ung, as she recounts her experiences during the occupation of the communist Khmer Rouge.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurviving Bokator\u201d is produced by Sandra Leuba and directed by Mark Bochsler, who has 25 years of experience as a cameraman and filmmaker.<\/p>\n

Bochsler has been working on the film for seven years now, five years of filming and two years of editing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was on a working-holiday in Cambodia and I was looking to do something creative, something with movement or martial arts,\u201d Bochsler said. \u201cCombine Cambodia and martial arts and you get Bokator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BOKATOR<\/p>\n

Mark Bochsler, director of “Surviving Bokatar”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Through the film, Bochsler hopes to offset the negative stigmas that people in Western countries associate with Cambodia based on the nation’s dark past.<\/p>\n

“Cambodia is a land of youth and optimism which is what I tried to capture, and Bokator is something Cambodians can feel proud about,” Bochsler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film was made with an international audience in mind, but we kept elements in the film specific to Cambodian people,\u201d Bochsler continued. \u201cI hope the film will be a sort of time capsule as there really aren\u2019t any other feature-length documentaries on Bokator.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival will be held September 14-17 and will begin with a private Filmmakers Welcome Reception on September 14 and a Kickoff Party on September 15. Screenings will be held at the Art Theatre in Long Beach.<\/p>\n

The full lineup of screenings is available via the website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Art Theatre is located at 2025 East 4th Street.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now in its fifth year, the Cambodia Town Film Festival returns with a pre-release of \u201cSurviving Bokator\u201d, a documentary about a genocide survivor, San Kim Sean, who returns to Cambodia to resurrect the ancient style of fighting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":66680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[303],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-cambodia-town-film-festival","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}