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Nous sommes les fruits de la forêt

We Are the Fruits of the Forest
Forum 2026
© ARTE France/ CDP / Anupheap Production 2025 Tous droits réservés
The Indigenous Bunong cultivate Cambodia’s forests and fields with the flick of a wrist. The rice grain embodies and brings together the ideas of preserving natural cycles, tradition, balanced economy and the worship of ancestors and gods; this equilibrium has been eaten up with the arrival of modernity and globalisation. The Bunong are losing the forest of whose ownership they have no conception. Pa Kreb belongs to the last generation of this culture of all-round skills, his voiceover analyses the clash of competing economic practices and the loss of a world in which exchange (instead of money) is imaginable. What looks like an ethnographic study (in the language of the Bunong) in the beginning, and fuses the real-life present with the past that flashes up in split-screen archive material, gradually becomes a lesson both bitter and valuable. Following films that catapulted his oeuvre into other realms over the last years – Irradiés (Berlinale Competition 2020), Everything Will Be Ok (Berlinale Competition 2022) and Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot (Cannes premiere 2024) – Rithy Panh now returns to a seemingly simpler form. Yet in modesty, there is wisdom and far-sightedness. Grand!
by Rithy Panh (Director, Screenplay)
with Pa Kreb, Mak Kreb, Yeay Kreb, Mak Lisa, Pouk Choeut, Mak Choeut, Pouk Noas, Mak Noas, Pouk Pritch, Mak Pritch Cambodia / France 2025 Bunong 87' Colour European premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Pa Kreb
  • Mak Kreb
  • Yeay Kreb
  • Mak Lisa
  • Pouk Choeut
  • Mak Choeut
  • Pouk Noas
  • Mak Noas
  • Pouk Pritch
  • Mak Pritch

Crew

Director Rithy Panh
Screenplay Rithy Panh
Cinematography Prum Mésar, Mourng Vet, Cheng Socheat, Sok Chan Rado, Rithy Panh
Producer Catherine Dussart

Produced by

CDP

Boulogne, France

Co-produced by

Anupheap Production

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Arte France

Paris, France

World Sales

Playtime

Paris, France

Photos

Rithy Panh

© Bophana Center

Rithy Panh was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and arrived in Paris in 1980 after fleeing the genocide led by the Khmer Rouge regime. In 2006, he co-founded the Bophana Center in Cambodia, dedicated to preserving the country’s audiovisual heritage and providing training in related professions. The Missing Picture was the first Cambodian film nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Irradiated was awarded Best Documentary at the 2020 Berlinale. Panh has co-authored several books, including The Elimination and Peace with the Dead (with Christophe Bataille).

Filmography

1989 Site 2 – Aux bords des frontières; documentary 1990 Souleymane Cissé; documentary 1994 Les Gens de la Rizière (Rice People) 1995 La famille Tan (The Tan’s Family); short documentary 1996 Bophana, une tragédie cambodgienne (Bophana, a Cambodian Tragedy) 1997 10 films contre 110 000 000 de mines (10 Films Against 110,000,000 Mines); documentary · Un soir après la guerre (One Evening After the War) 1998 Van Chan, une danseuse cambodgienne (Van Chan, a Cambodian Dancer); documentary 1999 La Terre des âmes errantes (The Land of Wandering Souls); documentary 2000 Que la barque se brise, que la jonque s’entrouvre; documentary 2002 La Machine de Mort Khmère Rouge (S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine); documentary 2003 Les Gens d’Angkor (The People of Angkor); documentary 2005 Les Artistes du théâtre brûlé (The Burnt Theatre) 2007 Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Embers); documentary 2008 Un Barrage contre le Pacifique (The Sea Wall) 2011 Duch, le Maître des forges de l’enfer (Duch, The Master of the Forges of Hell); documentary · Gibier d’élevage (Shiiku) 2013 L’Image manquante (The Missing Picture); documentary 2015 La France est notre patrie (France Is Our Mother Country); documentary 2016 Exil (Exile); documentary 2018 Les Tombeaux sans noms (Graves Without a Name); documentary 2020 Irradiés (Irradiated); documentary, Berlinale Competition 2020 2021 Everything Will Be Ok; Berlinale Competition 2022 2024 Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot (Meeting with Pol Pot); documentary 2025 Nous sommes les fruits de la forêt (We Are the Fruits of the Forest); documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026