“In 4 years the Khmer Rouge killed 3 million Cambodians” Interview with director Roshanne Saidnattar
From the age of seven, Roshane Saidnattar lived in Cambodian concentration camps known as the “Killing Fields”. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge unleashed a reign of terror, driving people out of cities and murdering or working to death as slave labour millions. Roshanne was one of their victims. She witnessed unspeakable suffering but after a number of years was able, with a group of children, to escape to Thailand. She was reunited with her father in exile and at the age of 13 attended school for the first time in Paris. Today she is an opera singer and an acclaimed filmmaker. With Martin Hála for HCH Roshanne Saidnattar discusses her life experiences as well as her film Survive: In The Heart of The Khmer Rouge Madness. In the documentary she filmed Khieu Samhpan, one of the Khmer Rouge’s chief ideologists, who had no idea she was a survivor. And Khieu Samphan recently appealed his life sentence for crimes against humanity before an international tribunal.