2017 House Programs A Requiem for Cambodia: Bangsokol | Page 12

CREATIVE TEAM
HIM SOPHY
Composer RITHY PANH
Director, Designer, Filmmaker
Dr Him Sophy was born into
a musical family in Prey Veng
Province, Cambodia in 1963.
Him started learning the piano
in 1972 in Phnom Penh, but was
forced out of the city in 1975
for the duration of the Khmer
Rouge regime. After the fall of the
Khmer Rouge, Him returned to
musical studies, at Cambodia’s
Secondary School of Fine Arts.
In 1985, Him won a scholarship
to the Moscow Conservatory of
Music, graduating with a PhD.
Him returned to Cambodia
in 1998 and opened the Him
Sophy School of Music in 2013.
Him’s previous works, including
the acclaimed rock opera
Where Elephants Weep, have
demonstrated an unparalleled
facility for bringing Western
and Khmer musical worlds
into intimate conversation. In
Bangsokol, Him combines a
Western chamber orchestra
and chorus with Khmer
instrumentalists and vocalists.
These traditional musical forms
are crucial for honoring the dead;
unfortunately, live performances
are seldom heard in the capital
and rapidly disappearing in
the countryside. Rithy Panh was born in Phnom
Penh, but expelled from the
capital by the Khmer Rouge as a
11-year-old child in 1975. Rithy
escaped to Thailand in 1979,
and lived for a time in a refugee
camp in Mairut. Rithy later made
it to Paris, France, and graduated
from the Institut des hautes
études cinématographiques.
Rithy returned to Cambodia
in 1990, and now splits lives
between Paris and Phnom Penh.
An internationally-acclaimed
documentary director and
screenwriter, Rithy was named
Asian Filmmaker of the Year by
the Busan International Film
Festival in 2013. Rithy is the first
Cambodian filmmaker ever to be
nominated for an Oscar, for The
Missing Picture in 2013. In the
same year Rithy received a prize
in the Un Certain Regard category
at the Cannes Festival.
Rithy’s documentary S-21: The
Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
was awarded the prestigious
Albert Londres Prize in 2004.
Most recently, Rithy worked as
producer for Angelina Jolie’s film
First They Killed My Father, based
on Luong Ung’s memoir, released
in September 2017. Rithy is
also the founder of the Bophana
Audiovisual Resource Center in
Phnom Penh, which makes film,
photography and sound archives
on Cambodia publicly available,
and trains a new generation
of Cambodian filmmakers and
multimedia technicians.