The Phnom Penh Post - ENGLISH: “Into pieces” plus 9 more

They are saying anything to be let off the charges. This is the ECCC, but if they were outside the court I would chop them into pieces.

Intriguing 'doll baby' photo series is one of the highlights of the forthcoming Angkor Photo Festival. Miranda Glasser reports.

Hollywood actress Carrie Fisher snuggling up to a freakishly lifelike baby doll, and a photo of a large black dog gazing forlornly from behind the steering wheel of a car feature in some of the highlights of this year's Angkor Photo Festival.

In its ninth year, the international festival – running from November 23-30 – has no established theme. Rather it celebrates the work of both established and up-and-coming photographers worldwide. Collections will be shown in a series of indoor and outdoor exhibitions plus eight evenings of outdoor slideshows.

"This year I've had around 1200 submissions," says program director Francoise Callier, who is curating the festival. "We'll have around 130 photographers and this year the submissions came from 75 countries which is really good – it increases every year."

She adds that the photographers can be from anywhere, but the work has to tell a story.

Callier is particularly excited about a collection by London-based photographer Martin Usborne, who will be exhibiting his series Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars at the McDermott Gallery. Usborne, whose work over the years has featured in the Sunday Times magazine and Time magazine and has been exhibited at London's National Portrait Gallery, was inspired by childhood angst-ridden memories of being left in a car.

"I don't know when or where or for how long, possibly at the age of four, perhaps outside a supermarket, probably for fifteen minutes only," his press literature reads. "The details don't matter. The point is that I wondered if anyone would come back.

The fear I felt was strong: in a child's mind it is possible to be alone forever."

At around the same time, he says, he developed a strong affinity with animals and was particularly affected by the sometimes cruel way they were treated by humans, hurt but unable to speak back.

"When I started this project I knew the photos would be dark," he writes. "In a sense, I was attempting to go back inside my car, to re-experience what I couldn't bear as a child. What I didn't expect was to see so many subtle reactions by the dogs: some sad, some expectant, some angry, some dejected."

In Mute, Usborne snaps various mutts sitting inside cars, from the handsome, black pedigree-looking dog behind the wheel to the scruffy Old English Sheepdog-type staring through his fur through a grubby windshield.

Callier also enthuses about a "very beautiful" exhibition by Japanese photographer Herbie Yamaguchi called Hatachi No Shokei

"The photos were taken between the '60s and '70s when Japan was recovering after the war," she says. "It's a bit like those old Japanese movies, very nice atmosphere."

As for the slideshows, one particular artist has caught Callier's eye: American photographer Rebecca Martinez, who shot a photo-story titled preTenders, about women who own dolls that look like living babies. In some of the series her subject is actress Carrie Fisher, who posed in character with the dolls creating different scenarios such as "haggard homemaker, bored mother and a beautiful, sophisticated housewife."

Martinez writes, "Who and what we fall in love with comes in many forms. Babies create strong emotions for the bearer, holder and observer. I have discovered this holds true even when it is known the baby is not real. This series documents a subculture of women who create, adopt, and love dolls that look as close as possible to living infants. It is called preTenders as one pretends the dolls are real, one tends to the babies and there are tender feelings involved."

Callier says the lifelike appearance of the dolls is quite extraordinary, and it is something of a shock when you see the photo depicting a multitude of 'babies' lined up on shelves.

"This is quite an interesting story," she says. "Rebecca Martinez made a story about a community of people in the States, mostly women, who want a baby but can't have one so they order plastic babies – and they are exactly like real ones. When you see the first picture in the slideshow you can't guess that they're fake babies and suddenly you have an image with 100 babies made of plastic!

"It's incredible. You can choose if it's a crying baby, a smiling baby – whatever you wish. It's quite a crazy project. The 'babies' even have toys. There is one picture that's quite amazing; it's a pregnant woman and she already has twenty of those plastic babies so you can't imagine what's going to happen to the real baby, I don't want to know," laughs Callier.

SACRED DANCERS US TOUR WRAP-UPP
A world-weary Ravynn Karet-Coxen, who has been touring the US with 34 of her sacred little dancers, flew back into Siem Reap on Sunday morning. Ravynn reports, "The tour went very well and we accomplished our mission with success, bonding and bridging culturally and spiritually American Cambodian to Motherland, but also sharing our culture with the Boston, Washington and Los Angeles Ballet and New York Dance Institute.

"The children touched so many hearts and were feted everywhere. I managed to take all 34 of them to Disneyland to see the new film, Gravity, in 3D. In New York we went to the Natural History Museum and spent time at the planetarium, and in Long Beach at the aquarium."

Ravynn's sacred dancers also met dancers from the LA Ballet and dance styles were compared.

Blouin ArtInfo reported on October 23, "East met west last week as the Sacred Dancers of Angkor stopped by an LA Ballet rehearsal to trade steps and exchange technical tips on two distinctly different disciplines. Cambodian dancers sat on the perimeter, while the ballet's dancers ran through a compelling routine of pas de chats, grand jetes, and assembles. When it was over, the Sacred Dancers took the floor to demonstrate their subtler, earthbound steps in a slow-motion line dance set to gamelan, drum, and bell.

"…Where ballet dancers take to the air, their Cambodian counterparts tend to stay close to the ground, coordinating complicated finger movements with a three-step dance to a two-four beat.
"'If you don't have that pulse happening, you don't really get it right away,' said LA Ballet dancer Christopher Charles McDaniel, who warily tried a few steps. He, like many of the dancers, saw some similarities in the two styles, such as a variation on fifth position frequently repeated by the Cambodians, as well as a tendency to turn out.

"'When you send that heel forward you're automatically turned out,' McDaniel said. 'It's the same thing we're thinking about when we're doing a degage or like when I taught them the pas de chat. You have to get the heels forward in order to maintain that rotation'."

SHORTS
US Relief: On October 23 CNN began a two-week-long airing of a 60-second public service announcement for the Landmine Relief Fund. CNN had been in Siem Reap filming Aki Ra working in the field and with kids at the Landmine Museum Relief Center. Meanwhile, the Landmine Relief Fund also received a grant from the US Department of State for $175,000.

Shinta Mani Foundation Graduation: Hospitality students at the Shinta Mani Foundation, headed by hard-working Chitra Vincent, graduated on Wednesday. Clayton Jedam explains that the graduation is a "nice story." He says, "Twenty students, eighteen with employment already lined up. The program is heading into its tenth year next year and is a pretty good model."

AboutAsia awards: Siem Reap travel agency AboutAsia has won Travel + Leisure magazine's Global Vision Award for Community for 2013. AboutAsia's ebullient and ultra-philanthropic Andy Booth traveled to New York to collect this award for his team's commitment to ethical travel. Two months ago Condé Nast Traveler added AboutAsia to its World Top Travel Specialists list for the quality of its travel services.

Sniffing things out: Lots of zombie-eyed drugged-out young boys and teeners walking around town and hanging out in the Royal Gardens, sniffing substances from plastic bags not so well hidden behind caps held to their faces.

Correction: Last week Man About said that the new Kaya boutique will be located in front of Shinta Mani hotel. What should have been said is that the new Kaya shop will be in the Cassia Gallery which, incidentally, is over the road from Shinta Mani.

Tonight sees the culmination of a week of Halloween-themed fun at Rosy Guesthouse, with a special spooky pub quiz in aid of NGO Honour Village Cambodia.

The owners Simon Tufts and Rachel Band have gone to town on the decorations with hundreds of black paper bats decorating the walls, a giant spider and a mummy's head placed artfully on a pumpkin-carving table.

The popular kids' Halloween party was a great success last Sunday, with 40 children turning up, more of them dressed up in costume than ever before.

"I feel the kids' party gets better every year," Band says. "We know what works and take out things that don't work so well. A lot more children were dressed up this year so maybe more families were getting into it too. There's quite a wide range of ages; we had about five under-twos and the rest were up to about probably nine or ten years old.

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"There seem to be quite a few people who come every year. It's a lot of effort but every year I'm pleased that we do it because all the children and their parents seem to like it."

Among the various witches, vampires and monsters, the best costume awards were won by eight-year-old Annan Balch who was Frankenstein, and Medusa, aka Chloe Scott, aged six.

Band says the children enjoyed the usual arts and crafts plus food and drink specials including Cheesy Deadman's Fingers (cheese on toast) and Slime (lime) juice.

Tonight, meanwhile, the adult contingent will be able to quench thirsts at the quiz with a Ghoulish Ale, a Zombie Brain or perhaps even a Black Magic Martini, while answering creepy questions.

"Most of the questions will be Halloween-themed and there will hopefully be a Halloween music round too," says Band.

The pub quiz kicks off at 8pm tonight at Rosy Guesthouse.

FCC Angkor's latest exhibition, Light and Shadow, which opens tomorrow is not the work of a professional photographer, but of a man more used to pulling teeth: German dentist Dr Walter Keller, who is volunteering for his fifth year at Angkor Hospital for Children.

This will be his first exhibition in Siem Reap. Last year he exhibited a similar collection at FCC Phnom Penh, but this time the photos are for sale with all proceeds going to the hospital. The exhibition comprises 43 photographs in colour and black and white, taken over the five years Keller has been visiting Cambodia.

"Some of the pictures are from the temples," he says. "A lot of them I took during our outreach program with the hospital, so the children are watching during the health instruction with wide-open eyes. It looks so beautiful to me."

Dr Keller, who has been volunteering two weeks a year at AHC since 2009, says he has seen much improvement at the hospital since first starting.

"It changes from year to year," he says. "When I first started there was one Khmer dentist and three dental nurses. Now there are two dentists and five dental nurses. Also they have a bigger area to work in; first there was only one small room now it's a big room with four dental chairs and they've had X-ray since last year. So it's improving."

The most common problem, he says, is tooth decay and abscesses due to too much sugar and not enough teeth brushing.

"They do not really know how to brush their teeth and about the influence of sugar," Dr Keller says. "I think one problem is the parents are perhaps are of an age where they were young during Khmer Rouge time or shortly after; they didn't have sugar at that time and so it didn't matter if they didn't brush their teeth.

"But now they have sugar, and they're still doing as they have done for the last twenty or thirty years. That's the problem."

He adds that Khmer children do not share the traditional fear of the dentist that most Western kids have.

Light and Shadow opens at FCC Angkor at 6.30pm on November 2.

Siem Reap's water festival celebration has been cancelled for the second year running due to recent floods that affected many people in the province, Siem Reap governor Khim Bun Song said.

This follows the announcement of the cancelation of the Phnom Penh water festival in the wake of floods around the country that killed at least 39 people.

"This year's water festival in Siem Reap will be cancelled as our province had been suffering from the floods and many victims still need help. That is why we decided not to celebrate it," the governor told Insider while he was walking along the riverside cleaning the city on Tuesday morning with relevant authorities and hundreds of students.

Flooding in Siem Reap last month affected thousands of families in several districts including Pouk, Angkor Chum, Krolanh, Varin and Srey Snom.

The governor added that along with houses and businesses, about 6,000 hectares of rice fields were also ruined.

But he said he felt that cancelling this year's water festival would not affect the tourism sector as the festival is only an annual one-off occasion. He said he also believed that Siem Reap residents would understand the reasons for the cancellation.

Last year, the annual Water Festival celebration in Siem Reap was cancelled during the mourning period for the former King Norodom Sihanouk.

The water festival was first cancelled in Phnom Penh in 2011 following the terrible tragedy that occurred during the 2010 festival when 347 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a human stampede on November 22.

Khmer Heart FC quite literally played their hearts out to scramble home 6-5 against Young Star to grab a place in the last 16 from Group D as the inaugural Tiger National Futsal Championship entered the knockout phase at the Beeline Arena late on Wednesday.

With their qualification chances hanging in balance, the two teams were at each other's throats every minute of the way in this must win game before the thrilling verdict went in favour of Khmer Heart, who had earlier been beaten out of sight by Family FC 7-0.

Khmer Super Red topped the four-team group after winning all the three matches.

There were no matches yesterday and action in the round of 16 starts today with the semi-finals and grand final, to be telecast live by local channel MyTV from 4:30pm onwards on Saturday.

"It has been hectic three days of intense futsal. We could see so much of enthusiasm and energy among the teams and the public response has also been good. We are looking forward to an exciting second stage of the competition," Beeline Arena general manager Charles Julliard told the Post.

Today's Fixtures
Norton FC v Super Striker 2:35pm
Western FC v Victory FC 3pm
Green World v Khmer Heart 3:25pm
Khmer Super Red v Daniel 3:50pm
PP Crown v Charlo FC – 4:15pm
Ramar FC v Pailin Gems 4:40pm
Dambo FC v Bavet Community 5:05pm
Makut Pich Weddings v Veasna 5:30pm

A tiny tamarind tree that sprouted from the ground on Tuesday has lit the superstitions of a growing network of residents in the capital's Sen Sok district who believe it resembles a human face.

Phann Srey Phen, 31, discovered the tiny 10-centimetre "magic" tree in the corner of a room in her house in Teuk Thla commune.

"When I saw it, I felt it smile and dance at me, waving from side to side, so I called my neighbour to come see it," Srey Phen said yesterday.

A fortune teller, Srey Phen added, had said a spirit known as "grandmother Dy" was embodying the tree and would bring good luck to her family.

The fortune teller instructed Srey Phen to buy sweets as an offering to the sprout, which would bring luck to the whole family, particularly her ailing son.

"We brought sweets and prayed to her. When the incense finally finished burning, my son got better," Srey Phen said, noting that since the discovery of the tamarind sprout her addiction to wine has subsided and many villagers have been visiting the tree.

Being the owner of a "magic" tamarind tree in Phnom Penh is proving lucrative.

Srey Phen raked in about $30 during the first day and even more the second.

The tree, she told the Post yesterday, was the real deal.

Villager But Luy Sambour, 66, decided to check it out for herself before buying into the urban legend.

"I believe in the tamarind's magic because it looks like a human being," Sambour said, adding that she planned on taking some of the water, strategically placed in front of the sprout, and sprinkling it on her body to ward off illness.

Teuk Thla commune chief Tann Navin visited the tamarind tree but was not won over.

It was, however, everyone's right to worship whatever they wished, he said.

"As I see it, it doesn't look like a human being. But our people are always quick to believe."

Discovery of the magical tamarind sprout is the second mystical story to alight this week with the discovery of a two-year-old boy in Kampong Cham, purported to have healing powers, extensively covered by Cambodian-language media.

An ethnic Jarai family has been evicted from their Ratanakirri province village where they say they received death threats over a land dispute.

This is the third time the family has abandoned their home after they filed a lawsuit against three commune authorities in 2011, alleging they illegally sold 480 hectares of community forest.

"They threatened to execute us if we did not leave. For safety, my family got out of the village," Romas Svang, 47, said.

Svang said commune chief Rocham Ven and his officers forced the family of nine out of the village by gathering the community for two meetings and collecting thumbprints of those who wanted the family to leave.
The commune chief declined to comment.

Svang claims the villagers sought revenge for the legal trouble and discriminated against the Christian, CNRP-supporting family.

Chhay Thy, coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said the three village officials accused of threatening and intimidating the family – including the former commune chief, the previous commune police chief and the commune clerk – will soon face a hearing.

O'Yadav district governor Dak Sor said villagers collected thumbprints to dismiss the family, but no one threatened murder. "Our villagers did not like him because he sued this person and that person. Such complaining is wrong," Dak Sor said.

An opposition commune chief police say was caught red-handed transporting a load of illegal luxury timber in Ratanakkiri province destined for Vietnam has found little support from his party.

Sev Nhang, a Sam Rainsy Party chief of Pate commune in O'Yadav district, was arrested at about 8pm on Wednesday night by military police while driving his Toyota Camry toward the border, O'Yadav district police chief Ma Vichet said.

"He was transporting 23 pieces of timber, but I don't know the size of the timber. Only the forestry officers know because they are cooperating," he said.

Eam Oeun, a Cambodia National Rescue Party representative in Ratanakkiri province, said the party could not get involved in the case but would be reporting the details to higher levels.

"The commune chief [Sev Nhang] used to seize other people's timber and to sell it to other people. He had been a timber businessman for ages," he said.

Nhang's phone was switched off yesterday.

Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, said it was widely known Nhang had been a timber trader but that crackdowns on illegal trading seemed confined to opposition perpetrators.

"But a lot of timber is transported across O'Yadav district – Ratanakkiri province does not have effective crackdowns."