Biography
Rithy Panh is a Cambodian-French documentary filmmaker, director, producer and screenwriter. He was born on 18 April 1964 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
His family was expelled from the capital by the Khmer Rouge in 1975; most relatives died of starvation or exhaustion in labour camps. Panh escaped to Thailand in 1979 and reached France in 1980. He trained at La Fémis (formerly IDHEC) in Paris. His early documentary Site 2 (1989) examined life in a refugee camp.
Panh’s films frequently address the legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime. Notable works include S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2003) and the Oscar-nominated The Missing Picture (2013). He produced Angelina Jolie’s First They Killed My Father (2017) and co-founded the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in Phnom Penh.
