Photography - Documentary: The Other Lives of Kattia
The team of Shanty Town Spirit has been helping the shooting of a documentary this weekend in Siem Reap about the life of the Kattia Huy (Shanty Town International), her tragic destiny and actual hopes. As many Cambodians, Kattia suffered during the civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. Now, she wants to help her country.
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| Kattia with Ermine Norodom, Manuel Collas de La Roche and Jean-Yves Froissart |
Born into a wealthy family, Kattia lived the happiness of Sangkum years before undergoing civil war and being thrown on the roads of Cambodia in 1975, she was then only nine years old. Yet she manage to survive and fled to Vietnam with her family. There, the situation was hardly less painful. No money, no job, the young Kattia also had to support her family. She would work in the markets as a seller, until she got the opportunity to obtain political asylum in France.
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| Kattia is talking to an old lady from Siem Reap, trying to understand... |
In France, the first years will be difficult for the family until Kattia manages to attend school, to get an education and then to start a career in trading. After a failed marriage and the death of her first child, she finally met love with Jean-Michel, a french film producer.
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| Documentary: The Other Lives of Kattia |
In 2010, during one of her homecoming to Cambodia, several members of her family are decimated in a terrible car accident on the road to Siem Reap. Kattia is devastated.
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| Kattia discovering again her country |
The beautiful story with her husband will last over twenty years until fate struck again. In 2015, the man of her life died of cancer. Struck down by grief, but she decided that life would not stop there: '' ... I was lost, I still am a little, but I'm a fighter. It's hard, but now I want to understand what is happening in my country a little better, and to see if I can help ... ''.
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| Kattia discovering again her country. here in Siem Reap |
Kattia then got closer to some friends, Ermine Norodom who manages the Shanty Town Spirit program in Phnom Penh, Manual Collas de la Roche, producer and founder of the forum Better World, and Jean-Yves Froissart, a friend who also help her prepare her humanitarian project, Shanty Town International.
The documentary is a first step towards promoting the project: building an educational project and a school in Siem Reap, showing the early years of her life until today, dramas, other lives and the unwavering energy a Cambodian lady , who was once little girl, thrown on the roads by the Khmer Rouge ...
If you wish to help and support her program,
click on the Donate button
or contact
Ermine Norodom : +855 (0) 90 22 74 33 (French & English)
Phirun Prak (Arun) : +855 (0) 96 663 6666 (English & Khmer)
Thank you
Dicover the Better World Forum
Location:
Krong Siem Reap, Cambodia
