Rob Lemkin is an award-winning filmmaker, and the founder of Old Street Films. He has directed and produced more than 50 documentaries, and made multiple films about the history and politics of Asia. In his latest film, Enemies of the People, Lemkin joins senior reporter with Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Post Thet Sambath in uncovering the truth behind the Khmer Rouge regime and Cambodia’s Killing Fields. We recently spoke via email about Enemies of the People and what can be learned from the brutality that took place under the Khmer Rouge.
N/V: Can you describe the path that led you from musician, to filmmaker and investigative journalist?
Lemkin: The musicians I made films with were people whose voices were not being heard too much at the time—amazing musicians like Chet Baker and Curtis Mayfield. Now I am making films with people whose voices are also not being heard.
N/V: I think it’s accurate to say that you’ve taken quite an interest in Asia—historically, politically and otherwise—what draws your attention there?
Lemkin: My partner is from Burma and so our kids have a strong South East Asian connection. That’s on personal level. But more widely, I’m interested in the way the region has imagined a very different future for the world.
N/V: What drew your focus to Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge specifically?
Lemkin: Whenever a person or a regime is ‘pathologised’ in the way the Khmer Rouge has been I think it is interesting to try and find the real people and real lives behind the facade of monstrosity.
N/V: How did you and co-director Thet Sambath cross paths and come to work together on Enemies of the People?
Lemkin: I went to Cambodia in 2006 with money to start a film about the Khmer Rouge trial. Sambath was my fixer. But I soon realised he was the story. We agreed to make the film 50-50 in 2007 and it took off from there.
N/V: Going into the film, I had to brace myself. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’ve read enough to know that the knowledge I was about to gain would come at a cost. In some ways, I was not looking forward to it. And it dawned on me that there’s likely a very large number of people who will never see this film because they’d simply rather not face that feeling. I’m curious if that concerns you, as a filmmaker and as a person.
Lemkin: I wish many more people could see this film as I believe it is an optimistic film. Often audiences are buzzing with energy afterwards. The New York Times reviewer called it ‘inspiring’ and that’s certainly our hope. But I realise many think it’s just too awful to contemplate. The thing is millions of people in the world don’t necessarily have the choice about whether or not to contemplate this kind of violence. So I appreciate those who do have that choice yet still strive to understand and come to see the film.
N/V: What do you see as being the positive takeaways from the film?
Lemkin: We tried to present the Khmer Rouge killers as the real people they are, real people who did terrible things a generation ago but who are now doing a great thing: telling the truth about what they did in the hope that history does not repeat itself. Sambath is a beacon of hope I would say. He comes not in the spirit of judgement but as an enabler of truth telling and that, we hope, provides a great release for many people connected to this or similar real history.
N/V: Suon—one of the peasant farmers (and former Khmer Rouge militia commander) you speak with in the film—says he wants to confess more, convince more to talk, see the film shown to as many as possible because it makes him feel better. My reasons for requesting this interview, quite frankly, were similar. How similar were your reasons for making the film?
Lemkin: Suon comes to ‘own’ the process of confession and truth telling. This is crucial for the positive working through of this kind of trauma and social violence in a community. We recently had a videoconference in which Suon and Khoun and survivors/victims of the Killing Fields now living in California spoke frankly for three hours. We are just beginning to work on next steps but I would venture to say that both ‘sides’ felt they owned the process and that is good and necessary.
N/V: Sambath’s personal sacrifices while working on this project are made quite clear in the film. What was it like being witness to that, and likewise, what do you feel you sacrificed in completing the film?
Lemkin: I felt a big responsibility to do my best to live up to the huge and superhuman struggle that he had maintained for 10 years. Actually, for me it was not a sacrifice. Yes, I gave up more lucrative work doing commercial television programmes but that was a price well worth paying.
N/V: Do you feel a responsibility to keep stories such as this in people’s consciousness and to expose the truth? And if so, do you feel that responsibility as a filmmaker, as a journalist, or just in general?
Lemkin: I think truth is a process. It’s not a place you arrive at. I think that in life generally and I think it’s good to use stories to encourage more critical thinking about the world.
N/V: While watching the film, and still now I am torn as to the sincerity of the killers’ remorse. It’s clear there’s some, but it seems diluted, or lacking something. Do you agree?
Lemkin: I think it is totally sincere. I think from a western standpoint you might think they are not expressing themselves as they describe this violence in such a matter of fact way. But that’s because violence is matter of fact, it’s not sensational for people who were so deeply involved. So I think it’s a matter of perception.
N/V: The fact that many who were involved in the killings are still alive and secretively coexisting with the rest of society can be a hard fact to get your head around. Do you think Cambodians have learned and progressed as a result of the Khmer Rouge regime, or has the somewhat unspoken existence of the killers washed away some of those important lessons?
Lemkin: No, I don’t think Cambodia has progressed much as a result of the regime. Sambath’s work represents perhaps the first time original research has been done by a Cambodian into the subject. I think it will inspire a new generation of Cambodians who want to find out what really happened 30 years ago.
N/V: At least 200,000 were executed under the Khmer Rouge, about a quarter of the population is said to have died under the regime. If you visit one of the Killing Fields today—30 years later—human remains are still found rising from the ground. What other lasting effects are still evident today?
Lemkin: Cambodia is still a rather frightened (not frightening) place and people tend to be quite paranoid. The air really has not yet cleared.
N/V: How large a part has education played in all of this: in terms of a lack of it perhaps allowing the tragedy to occur, and also in terms the suppression and targeting of intellectuals and the educated allowing it to continue?
Lemkin: Actually the targeting of intelligentsia was not a core policy rather it was a function of the political struggle raging inside the Khmer Rouge. Certainly, many intellectuals were killed but not as intellectuals rather than because they were opposed to the Pol Pot line of the Khmer Rouge party. The real failure of Pol Pot and Nuon Chea was to think they could persuade people to go with their vision by such force and violence.
N/V: I believe the suppression of education, knowledge and information is a common theme among those striving to maintain power and control over people. I’d like to get your thoughts on that.
Lemkin: I agree that all power elites (of right or left wing or even centre bent) have little natural interest in the open democratic sharing of information. Information usually has to be taken not just received.
N/V: What has your work on this project, and your extensive work in Asia, taught you about your own country, or perhaps others?
Lemkin: I think there are some ideas about the relation of the individual to society and community in Asia which are very useful going forward. In our European tradition we have come to see the individual as everything and that’s not too good.
N/V: As an American, what can this film teach me about my country? And what dots can I connect between it and Cambodia?
Lemkin: When Nixon and Kissinger secretly and illegally bombed Cambodia from 1969 to 1973, they created such a harsh climate that 1. People were attracted to the Khmer Rouge and 2. Politics became intensely violent. The B52 pilots who dropped loads on the Cambodian jungle may have killed far more people than Khoun and Suon, but they didn’t do it with their bare hands and so they haven’t had to face the incredible existential nightmare the killers of the Khmer Rouge faced. It’s wrong to say it’s all America’s fault. But certainly I would say the US has joint culpability along with the Khmer Rouge, China, Vietnam and the Soviet Union for the millions of people who died in Cambodia between 1970 and 1980. We should remember that as a result of the bombing Cambodia was on the road to annihilating starvation and that was even before the Khmer Rouge took power. That’s not me saying it, that’s what USAID said in 1975.
N/V: Nuon Chea and three other surviving Khmer Rouge leaders are now finally being brought to trial for crimes against humanity, among other things. And I read that your film will actually be used by the court. I think that is an amazing accomplishment. You must be very proud.
Lemkin: We are very pleased and proud it will be used. However, we have courted some controversy by not handing it over to be used as prosecution evidence despite attempts to initiate a subpoena process by the court. The fact that we have remained at arm’s length means we can continue our work and right now we are working with more Khmer Rouge perpetrators who would not speak to us if we were seen as an agent of the UN court.
N/V: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Lemkin: [Enemies of the People] Part Two is a political conspiracy thriller. We are using the material we already shot. It will take off from the first film and feature the same characters but it will be more political and detailed about the real causes of the Killing Fields. I am also working on a short film about blinded American soldiers, which is actually a remake of a documentary by the Polish filmmaker Krysztof Kieslowski. Also writing a film about a friend of mine, an Englishwoman who married Saddam Hussein’s Minister of Oil.