Jonathan Greenberg and Liz Abzug
Huffington Post
The human face of globalization will not be found in protests or
rallies. It is in the eyes of displaced women and men leaving centuries
old agrarian systems. It is the painful, disempowering march from a
sustaining, ecologically-balanced family-focused life of hard
food-producing work to a dollar-obsessed global system of harder work
and longer hours.
Kalyanee Mam's bold new documentary, A River Changes Course,
shot in a breathtakingly beautiful, cinema-verite style, breaks new
ground in presenting the lives of Cambodians marching from their ancient
culture into a globalized economy.
Mam spent many months deep in the Cambodian countryside, and did her own
camera work for this deeply authentic, and heart-opening work. The
stunning documentary is the first by a Cambodian woman to premiere at
the Sundance Film Festival.
Mam's important documentary does not focus on political or economic ideals. It is about our shared humanity. "For
me, it's always been a personal journey. Only in exposing the beauty of
the country can we preserve the beauty of it. Peoples' lives are
valuable and precious, and so is the environment," Mam says. "If we act
with clear intention, we can come up with solutions that take care of
people, the environment, and the country."
In the spirit of the evolving eco-feminist movement, which calls upon
women to "lead an ecological revolution in order to save the planet,"
the film sensitively explores the challenges -- and the environmental
wisdom -- of two women bread-winners as they fight an uphill struggle to
preserve their farm, forest and livelihoods, as well a fishing family
challenged by diminishing yields.
Agriculture currently employs nearly three quarters of Cambodia's
fast-growing population of about 14 million. The families lovingly
profiled in A River Changes Course are finding their lives devastated by
the impact of unbridled, under-regulated globalization as their nation
-- and the small class of Cambodian plutocrats whose extreme wealth is
based upon collaboration with multinational corporations -- marches to
the tune of "progress."
The economic pressures that transform these agrarian Cambodian families
are rooted in the ecological manifestations of greed-focused, unchecked
globalization: drought from climate change, deforestation in the land
grab for diminishing natural resources, relentless debt, overfishing,
and the unchecked power of multinational agribusiness to win its way in
one developing economy after another.
Director/cinematographer Kalyanee Mam, cinematographer for the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job,
does not believe the answer to her native country's problems lie in
going back to the good old days. After all, this is the nation in which
two million people died during Pol Pots despotic, insanity-fueled
"agrarian" revolution. Yale and UCLA Law-educated, Mam spent the first
few years of her life in a Khmer Rouge work camp before she and her
family escaped to the United States through Thailand.
"Going back is not the answer -- change is inevitable," Mam observed.
"But the question is: what kind of change do we make? How do we go about
that change, and what is its impact on people's lives and the
environment? People's lives are being destroyed for the greater good of
the country and economy regardless of the impact on people. If we are
not aware of how the change impacts peoples' lives, we will never come
to a solution."
Politics and economics, in Mam's view, should serve the greater good.
"We are one human family," she notes. "What do we, the people, want our
governments to do? It is important that we take responsibility for the
changes that are happening in this world."
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