The Last Refuge

Anne-Laure Porée and Guillaume Suon

Documentary / 65’ / 2013

This is the last bastion. A few kilometers from the Vietnamese border, Cambodia’s Bunongs are facing with the implementation of economic concessions, which are said to bring them "development". In fact they lose their cemeteries; they lose their fields; they lose the nourishing and protective forest. Their land is being razed by the rubber companies’ bulldozers. Pou Chap, his family and his neighbors are concerned with the practices of these companies, but they refuse to become rubber laborers. They learn the hard way to survive in an increasingly difficult environment; and they try to safeguard what they can of their identity. This documentary focuses on their daily life on Cambodian Highlands, on their peaceful but noble struggle for the sake of their souls.

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