"What Does it Take to Heal? Finding Love, Joy and Pardon after the Cambodian Genocide"

Socheata Poeuv
Director of award-winning documentary film New Year Baby
Executive Director, Khmer Legacies

Socheata Poeuv grew up knowing more about the Holocaust than the Khmer Rouge genocide which her entire family survived. Four years ago, she began filming her parents' story on videotape. What began as a glorified home video evolved into a documentary film, New Year Baby, which has won seven international awards and will be broadcast nationally on PBS.

Now, she's launching a new organization called Khmer Legacies whose mission is to create a video history archive about the Cambodian genocide. The organization will videotape 10,000 testimonies of survivors by having children interview their parents.

The heart of her work is an inquiry into healing. Focusing on the private dimensions of post-genocide trauma, what she experienced after returning to Cambodia is how love, joy and pardon can be an antidote to pain. And further, how a narrative of shame and victimhood can be transformed into one of heroism."

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