--- title: "A Cambodian Spring" year: 2018 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/a-cambodian-spring" fi1m_id: "a-cambodian-spring" imdb_id: "tt5704606" tmdb_id: 462332 wikidata_id: "Q24705178" fi1m_score: 67 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-10-03T00:19:42.480867+00:00" updated: "2026-10-03T00:20:05.379155+00:00" region: "HK" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # A Cambodian Spring (2018) Directed by Chris Kelly · 2h 07m · Documentary ## Identity A Cambodian Spring - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/a-cambodian-spring - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** a-cambodian-spring - **IMDb ID:** tt5704606 - **TMDB ID:** 462332 - **Wikidata ID:** Q24705178 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5704606/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/462332, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24705178 **Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 69 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* A monk with a camcorder, two mothers with a megaphone, and a lake slowly filling up with sand > Chris Kelly spent years with the people fighting the sale of a Phnom Penh lake, and the footage he brought back is remarkable. The film he cut from it is long, crowded and often hard to follow, and the anger survives anyway. ## Synopsis Phnom Penh, the late 2000s. Boeung Kak, a lake in the middle of the city, has been leased to a developer, and sand is being pumped into it while the families on its banks are told to take a payment and leave. Two mothers from the lakeside refuse to go and begin organising their neighbours, carrying banners to the municipal offices and standing in front of the police lines. A Buddhist monk films evictions on a small camera and passes the footage on, to the growing displeasure of his superiors. Chris Kelly, who directed, wrote and shot the film and cut it with Ryan Mullins and Pawel Stec, follows them as the water disappears and the crowds grow, to a score by James Holden. ## Review Chris Kelly went to Cambodia to film the fight over one lake and came back with something closer to a history of a country’s opposition. Boeung Kak, in the centre of Phnom Penh, was leased to a developer and pumped full of sand, and the families living around it were offered a little money and told to go. Kelly directed, wrote, produced, shot and co-edited what followed. The result is 127 minutes that are often remarkable and seldom tidy, a film we were glad to have seen and kept losing the thread of, sometimes inside the same ten minutes. His three subjects are well chosen. Two mothers from the lakeside discover, more or less on camera, that they are good at this: at marshalling neighbours, at standing their ground in front of a line of helmets, at saying the thing the officials do not want said. A Buddhist monk films evictions and beatings on a small camera and hands the footage on, which earns him the attention of the police and the displeasure of the men who run his order. Kelly stays close to all three. When the crowd surges the camera is in it, and when a door is shut in the monk’s face we are standing beside him. The lake is the film’s best image, and Kelly, who shot it himself, knows it. A pipe spews grey slurry into clear water. Stilt houses that stood over a lake stand, a few months on, over a plain of wet sand, and then over nothing, because the bulldozers have arrived. Kelly returns to the same vantage points so that we watch the water retreat the way a timelapse would show it, only slower and with people in it. James Holden’s score sits under these passages as a low electronic hum that never tells us how to feel, which this sort of film rarely allows. We were angry, and the film earned it plainly. There is a stretch in which the women of Boeung Kak are met at a demonstration by police who simply pick them up and carry them off, and the camera goes down with one of them, and for a few seconds we are looking at tarmac and boots. There is no music. Nobody explains it. It is the most direct thing in the film and we have not shaken it. The trouble is the shape. Kelly cut the film with Ryan Mullins and Pawel Stec, and three editors have not settled how much to tell us. Title cards arrive dense with the names of parties, ministers and land laws, and they are gone before we have finished reading them. Characters vanish for twenty minutes while the film widens out to national politics, and when they return we have to remember who was in prison and who was out. The people doing the taking, the developer, the officials, the ruling party, stay off screen throughout. We understand why Kelly could not get to them; we wish he had found a way to show their absence rather than simply carrying on without them. The second half takes a turn among the three of them that we will not describe. We will say it is the most human thing in the film, and that the film gives it less room than it gives the title cards. Documentaries made from inside a movement usually have this weakness. The closer the camera is, the less of the map you can see, and *A Cambodian Spring* has chosen closeness and paid for it. A tidier film, with experts in chairs and a voice from London telling us what the government had done that week, would have been easier to follow and would not have had the lake, or the women, or the monk holding his camera above the crowd. Give it the whole evening and do not expect to follow all of it. It will not make you an expert on Cambodia. It will make you remember the sound of sand hitting water. *Fi1m score 67, published 3 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is A Cambodian Spring worth watching?** *A Cambodian Spring* is worth watching for anyone with patience for a long, crowded documentary filmed from inside a protest movement, and we scored it 67. Chris Kelly's footage of the lake filling with sand and of police carrying off the women of Boeung Kak is remarkable, but the film is hard to follow and the title cards outpace the reader. Give it the whole evening. **How long is A Cambodian Spring, and what is it rated?** *A Cambodian Spring* runs 2h 07m. It is a documentary film. **Where can I watch A Cambodian Spring in Hong Kong?** *A Cambodian Spring* is streaming on MUBI in Hong Kong. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does A Cambodian Spring compare to The Act of Killing?** *A Cambodian Spring* follows protesters as a Phnom Penh lake is sold off, where [*The Act of Killing*](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing) lets Indonesia's killers restage their own crimes, so the two take opposite approaches to injustice. The Oppenheimer film is the more unsettling and the one we recommend more strongly, though both leave out much of the surrounding history. Kelly's is the warmer and the messier. **What should I watch after A Cambodian Spring?** After *A Cambodian Spring*, try [*The Act of Killing*](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing) (2012, Fi1m 88): Indonesia’s killers restage their crimes; the opposite method, and far more unsettling for it. Then [*Harlan County, USA*](https://film.one/film/harlan-county-u-s-a) (1976, Fi1m 88): Kentucky miners’ wives hold the picket line; the women organisers Kelly found had forerunners. ### Reviews we read (4) - **Little White Lies**, Eve Watling (3/4/4): Watling finds the documentary thoughtful and emotionally powerful, though it leaves important context vague and its powerful figures in the shadows. She praises Kelly’s brooding cinematography and the film’s raw, in-the-mix view of the activists’ struggles. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/a-cambodian-spring) - **Time Out**, Phil de Semlyen (4/5): The review finds the documentary fascinating and sees both corruption and heroism in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. It praises Kelly’s fly-on-the-wall approach to a less-publicised popular movement. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/a-cambodian-spring) - **The Guardian**, Simran Hans (3/5): Hans finds the documentary compelling but says its two-hour runtime, uneven chapters and dense title cards make it awkwardly paced. She praises its raw footage of police brutality and the human stories at its core. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/may/20/cambodian-spring-review) - **Eye for Film**, Owen Van Spall (50/100, inferred): The critic finds the documentary urgent and visually striking, but says its broad scope leaves some compelling characters underexplored. They particularly praise its cinematic images of the disappearing lake and its foregrounding of women protesters. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/a-cambodian-spring-2017-film-review-by-owen-van-spall) ## Details - **Director:** Chris Kelly - **Director:** Chris Kelly - **Writer:** Chris Kelly - **Editor:** Chris Kelly, Ryan Mullins, Pawel Stec - **Music:** James Holden - **Producer:** Chris Kelly - **Runtime:** 2h 07m - **Release (Hong Kong):** 2 October 2018 - **Genres:** Documentary ## Where to watch in Hong Kong - MUBI: streaming, hd *Checked 2026-10-03.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Act of Killing* (2012), Fi1m 88: Indonesia’s killers restage their crimes; the opposite method, and far more unsettling for it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-act-of-killing.md) - *The Square* (2013): Tahrir Square from inside the crowd, with the same thrill and the same confusion. - *Harlan County, USA* (1976), Fi1m 88: Kentucky miners’ wives hold the picket line; the women organisers Kelly found had forerunners. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/harlan-county-u-s-a.md) - *The Missing Picture* (2013): Rithy Panh rebuilds the Khmer Rouge years in clay figures; the history under this story. - *Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom* (2015): A popular uprising cut for momentum rather than nuance; a useful contrast in approach. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/a-cambodian-spring