Everything Will Be Ok

A megalith rises from a sandy desert – or rather, a scale model of such a landscape. “I am the archive”, says a young female voice while ominous string music nails viewers to their seats. This opening sets the stage for the narrative and figurative language of Rithy Panh’s dense mnemonic essay which uses stunning dioramas to tell a twenty-first century dystopian story. After a century of genocidal ideologies and destructive speciesism, animals have enslaved humans and taken over the world. In a wave of hope, the statues of the past have been removed but new ones are being erected to suppress the will of the people. This is now a planet of apes, boars and lions, and a zoological revolution is reversing and recreating the atrocities of the 20th century. As animal figures watch the film archives of our world, it feels as if Lumière has been transported into a film by Méliès or Willis H. O’Brien. We are all well aware that history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as a farce. The time has now come for this farce, in which “political language inhabits our dreams and consumes us”, to allow the possibility of a “graceful and tender insubordination” to emerge.
by Rithy Panh France / Cambodia 2021 French 98’ Colour & Black/White Documentary form

Crew

Director Rithy Panh
Screenplay Rithy Panh, Agnès Sénémaud, Christophe Bataille Voice Over Writer
Cinematography Rithy Panh, Prum Mesa
Editing Rithy Panh
Music Marc Marder
Sound Eric Tisserand
Production Design Sarit Mang
Art Director Toh
Assistant Director Socheat Cheng
Producer Catherine Dussart
Executive Producer Catherine Dussart
Co-Producer Rithy Panh, Fabrice Puchault
Co-Production Anupheap Production Phnom Penh
Arte Issy-les-Moulineaux

Produced by

CDP

Rithy Panh

Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 1964. He fled the Khmer Rouge dictatorship and came to Paris in 1980 where he studied at the IDHEC, now La Fémis. His documentary S21:The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine addressed the Khmer Rouge’s systematic policy of extermination between 1975 and 1979. He is co-founder of the Centre Bophana which is dedicated to archiving Cambodian film heritage. In 2013, his film The Missing Picture was the first Cambodian production to be nominated for an Oscar. His film Irradiated screened in the 2020 Berlinale Competition and won the award for Best Documentary.

Filmography (documentaries)

1989 Site 2 – Aux bords des frontières 1990 Cinéma, de notre temps, Souleymane Cissé 1994 Les gens de la rizière (Rice People) 1995 La famille Tan (Tan Family) 1996 Bophana, une tragédie cambodgienne (Bophana a Cambodian Tragedy) 1997 Un soir après la guerre (One Evening After the War) · 10 films contre 110 000 000 de mines (10 Films Against 110 000 000 Mines) 1998 Van Chan, une danseuse cambodgienne (Van Chan a Cambodian Dancer) 1999 La terre des âmes errantes (The Land of Wandering Souls) 2000 Que la barque se brise, que la jonque s’entrouvre (Let the Boat Break its Back, Let the Junk Break Open) 2002 S21, la machine de mort Khmére rouge (S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine) 2003 Les gens d’angkor (The People of Angkor) 2005 Les artistes du théâtre brûlé (The Artists of the Burnt Theater) 2007 Le papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise (Paper Cannot Wrap Embers) 2008 Un barrage contre le pacifique (Sea Wall) 2011 Duch, le maître des forges de l’enfer (Duch, the Master of the Forges of Hell) · Gibier d’élevage (Shiiku) 2013 L’image manquante (The Missing Picture) 2015 La France est notre patrie (France Is Our Mother Country) 2016 Exil (Exile) 2018 Les tombeaux sans noms (Graves Without a Name) 2020 Irradiés (Irradiated) 2021 Everything Will Be Ok

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022