ERR in Cambodia

A group of 3 documentary filmmakers from Estonian Public Broadcasting, author and director Gerli Nõmm, script editor Anniken Haldna and cinematographer Martin Tennokene, spent the month of January 2016 in Cambodia.

Background information

Cambodia used to be home to some of the most diverse arts and culture in Southeast Asia. Music, dance and theater flourished until in the years between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge put a devastating end to that.

During those years, 2 million Cambodians died from execution, starvation and overwork; among the dead were 90% percent of Cambodia’s artists, who were specifically targeted for execution. This was a ruinous blow to Cambodia’s cultural heritage, especially given that the skills were passed on from master to student, and were rarely written down.

Some of the Masters survived and the non-profit organization Cambodian Living Arts found them and since 1998 they have been supporting the Masters and giving scholarships to underprivileged children so the traditions could continue.

Our documentary tells the story of 3 women from different generations who all have dedicated their lives to the most ancient and endangered Cambodian art forms – Smot chanting. This buddhist poetry singing method shares the wisdom of life and death and brings comfort and knowledge to people. Smot chanters perform at traditional ceremonies, funerals and other religious events and have played a big role in khmer culture.

Our characters

Master Koeut Ran – an old respected woman, who shared with us her story of surviving the Khmer Rouge regime. Since 2004 she has been teaching Smot for younger generations, but by now has retired and given up teaching children. She continues giving private lessons to the monks and makes a small income by performing at the ceremonies.

She is the link between our two other characters Srey Pov and Srey Oun who learned Smot with Master Koeut Ran and have earned honorable positions in their communities thanks to their rare talent.

Srey Oun – our main character – is a 35 year old woman from Kampong Speu Province, Kong Pisey village. She lives a traditional and modest life at the countryside, works on the rice field with her family and has dedicated her life to buddhism, helping her old parents and teaching Smot at the local elementary school. She left school in the 9th grade to work, support her parents and help them out with household works. She has had no luck with finding a good husband, so she has stayed single, which is rather uncommon in Cambodian culture. Her biggest dream was getting a scholarship from CLA and studying traditional khmer music in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, but she had no luck. At the moment she is dedicated to teaching Smot chanting at the local school to hundreds of children. Her monthly income as a teacher is 70 USD.

Our third character Srey Pov is a good example of how development cooperation can change lives. She is a 24-year old successful business woman, based in Phnom Penh. She was born and raised in Kampong Speu province as our two other ladies, but thanks to the scholarship she had the chance to attend high school in Phnom Penh and afterwards study Smot at the university. She owns a growing business called Srey Pov Smot, that sells the ceremony organizing service to wealthy cambodians. She has more than 10 employees working for her and offering the full service of ceremonies, starting from decorations, finishing with catering and mastering the ceremonies. That allows her to dedicate on her passion for Smot chanting.

During the month in Cambodia our team had the chance to take a close look at the khmer culture and Cambodian history. We experienced the amazing hospitality of cambodian families that welcomed us in their homes and let us participate in the religious ceremonies, that were often very personal and intimate. We witnessed the harsh contrasts and class divisions in cambodian society.

As many other Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia is developing rapidly. The capital is full of fancy cafes and shops that the locals often can't afford to go to. New skyscrapers are in the process of construction almost at every street corner. At the same time, only 2 hours car drive away, there are endless rice fields, coconut forests, pagodas and villages where the inhabitants are trying to hold on to the disappearing traditional ways of living.

Education is the key factor to move Burma forward

Burma which is officially known as the Republic of Union of Myanmar will be covered in a television documentary produced by a team of Estonian public Broadcasting (director Tarvo Mölder, cinematographer Margus Malm and editor Indrek Treufeldt).

According to western media Burma has been widely known as a military-ruled authoritarian country. Nearly 50 years the country has borne international isolation. There Buddhism has a special status. Still it is a country of ethnic and religious conflicts. Officially the government recognises more than 130 distinct ethnic groups and also eight so-called ‘major national ethnic races’.  Recent general elections have brought some hope for democratic parties but a flawed constitution could be an obstacle for urgent reforms.

The TV crew started its visit from Mandalay, a city considered as a cultural capital of Burma. From Mandalay they went to Hsipaw and Namlan which both are in Shan State. It is a state with distinctive ethnicity and culture. There was a chance to travel to some remote and isolated areas with small settlements and villages. Finally the crew arrived in Yangon which is the former capital of Burma with more than 4 million inhabitants. 

The documentary examines problems and challenges concerning the educational system in Burma. There is a comparison on two different schools as typical examples of recent advances in the country. The development aid component is vital in both cases. Estonian volunteers have been working for the Rural Development Fund, an institution that helps to develop primary and also secondary education in Burma. Also Estonians contributed to find some innovative teaching methods in the biggest monastic school in the world.

One of the schools observed during the visit was a primary school Zarm Kar, in a small village of Shan State. It is a village of 200 people and 50 households. At present there is no electricity, no telephone lines or mobile network coverage. The school was opened recently as an initiative by Sai Naw Kham. He is the person who leads the Rural Development Foundation. As he explains besides logistical obstacles (bad roads and poor infrastructure in general) there are also economic and psychological constraints. In many cases children have to work on fields to help families to get their basic income. The community leader Lon Num said in the interview that after the school was built, families found new ways to cooperate and finally let children to go to school. Still the problem is that only a few children can continue their education in secondary schools. The Rural Development Foundation started to build special dormitories for villagers in towns where secondary education is available. Still there is a long way to go.

The second school observed closely during the journalistic visit was the Phaung Daw Oo Monastic Education High School. It is situated in Nanshe, in the suburb of North East Mandalay, one of the biggest cities in Burma. The school was founded by a young monk U Nayaka who currently is the headmaster of the school. His idea was to educate poor children, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender. U Nayaka considers that the traditional Burmese teaching methods (first of all primitive repetition, monological teaching principles) do not enable to develop necessary creativity and critical thinking skills the country needs. Now all the teachers of the school use competitive debate as a tool to teach critical thinking to help to present different sides of an argument. Those are vital preconditions for emerging free and democratic public sphere in the country.

Young students (Htet Nainglin, Phone Mit Ko) described their experiences with different students projects, which are new for a country like Burma. The warden of the girls’ dormitory (Har Khaw Dee) explained what does it mean to bring together children of different background (ethnicities and religion). Traditionally monastic system has been dominated by men. Now there is an opportunity provided also for girls. There is interesting to see how traditional (Buddhist tradition first of all) and innovative pedagogical approaches come together in the biggest monastic school in the world with more than 8 thousand students where English is widely spoken which is not typical for Burma.

Both schools were also visited by the representatives of NGO Mondo (Johanna Helin and Triinu Ossinovski). For the TV crew it enabled to get valuable background information on perspectives and challenges of international development aid cooperation.