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Ly Bunyim, An Accidental Film Producer
01-Apr-2008

In a tranquil room with many film posters like Ohn Ey Srey Ohn, Neang Kang Rey there is a medium build, white, bald man who is about 60 year-old is sitting in front of a computer concentrating on a picture to think way to design a picture fit with film scenario and that is the popular Khmer film producer, Mr. Ly Bunyim, in 60th century.

Mr. Ly Bunyim was not only a very well-known film producer, but he was also a very intelligent film director who had directed over 20 film stories. Besides this he used to be a Camera man and an actor as well.

He moved aside from his designing room and recalled that “I am really ridiculous when I memorize about my past life. At that time I wrote a story, I already chose all people play the role in this story but I did not have an actor so everyone urged me to play this role. Because of that time we did not have film school to study so I agreed with them to play the role.”

He seems shy once he talked about his previous life and he added, “When I played the role, it was very difficult for me due to I was also a camera man. As soon as it was my role, I had to press the camera automatically capture the action and then I ran back to take a film. When scene which I played the role got finished, I ran to turn camera off. When I did like this, I had to spend a lot of films so I recruited a suitable person who I confided to help me. I just allowed him to press toggle of camber to capture the action and to turn the camera off once I told him to stop.”

The first story was titled “Ron Teas Kro Sa [Lightning of Family]” got much supported unexpectedly. Since then it led the young producer try to work hard with this career and it also made him stopped to study. He added, “Most of my stories were very supported that caused me stopped to study from French in order to satisfy my audiences who always backed my films production.”

Because of his films were so supported, Mr. Ly Bunyim operated a film production called “Ron Teas Peach Film production [Lightning of Diamond production] which was the only one of five productions which got much supported in 60th century. Mr. Buyim stated, “All of film productions, my production was very popular. When I played a new story, I did not spend much money on advertisement like the others. Because of audiences always toll to each other, especially, the sellers at market.”

Even though, at that time the technology and some other film materials were not modern as today, this young producer did not let time gone, he still tried to make the new story. And his films were also got popular by neighboring countries. Mr. Buyim further added, at that time we just took our film with the natural color because we did take it to Labo’s to get created some more, as soon as we got finished our film, we play it directly at the cinema. At the theater we had to add a film sound track and a man and a woman to comment directly following action of film while it was being played.

All though it was so difficult for Cambodian producers at that time, the producers tried hard in order to satisfy the audiences’s support. He added, “At the time, film producing was extremely difficult, especially, once there was a flying scene which we had to step backward the film which we already captured to step on each other to see the real flying scene.”

He recalled about the reason which he could capture the film, “Due to, I love this field when I was studying at Kampong Cham Sihanouk High school, I got number one of American photo contest. I had a chance to Hong Kong for half month and while I came across a Camera shop, I could not move so I decided to buy it in order to make a film in our country. During that time I was there only two days then I returned to our country because I was out of money due to I bought this camera.

He added more, “I bought the camera already but I could not use it because I had never study how to use camera. I just tried to learn by myself and I tried to shot with sunlight and then I noticed its diagram or size to know which plan could we use and how much diagram or size if scene under the light and cloudy what could we use. When we were in the light bulb, how could we use it and then I sent this film to wash. I noticed by my self so that I could identify with those plans or scene very well about how to use my camera.”

Though he loved with this field, he became a film writer, a professional camera man and director accidentally. Mr. Ly Bunyim told about the reason caused him to be so and that “When I finished studying in our country, I had to pursue my study at French for ten years on film producing. Because of being my parents, I ran a pharmacy called “Chenvong Pharmacy.”

“The reason that I made this pharmacy because I wanted to teach my older brother to recognized the kinds of medicines in order to sell the medicines to follow prescription to get some money to feed my parents. Adventitiously, while I cured my patients, they always got recovered and my pharmacy got very popular from day to day.”

He added, “Due to I treated the patients got discovered, there were a lot of patients came to buy the medicines from my pharmacy than others. There were some other pharmacy owners asked me to buy my pharmacy with high price so I agreed to sell to him. As long as I got money from the selling of my pharmacy, 90% of the money I gave to my parents and kept some for my self. After I bought a camera from Hong Kong, I tested to shot a film. At the time my first film got very popular so I decided to catch up with this field.”

During 60th century, Cambodian film was widely supported even there were imported foreign films. Mr. Bunyim added, the significant factor which our films was so supported in that period because of our film writers understood the audiences’needs. So all film writers have to know clearly about what our audiences ‘s need and what do they want in order to satisfy their mind. For instance, my story called Ohn Ey Srey Ohn story was about friends betrayed to each other and about the poor’s life who owed someone’s money so how could he deal with this problem and our ex-actor was Mr. Chey had to carry our Khmer noodles to sell to get money to pay for debt as well as to save some to get marred. This story, we knew clearly about our audeinces’s mind and the reality in our society. He added, this story was not only popular in that time but it also gets popular now because of it got well produced. So our audiences still support and the important point is its good quality.

In the age of 66 year-old from Kampong Cham province who is farmer family with 8 siblings and some were died in Pol Pot regime and was expatriated in 1977 in the Democratic Cambodian regime which was led by Pol Pot. He returned to his home country in 1994 Mr. Bunyim said, “I really love my home country. I returned to continue this career to serve my audeinces’s needs. I made a studio at Ta Kmov town and I wrote and directed a story called “The Three Worlds” which emphasized about the paradise, hell and our human world. It was about our good deed and sin. It is a 35 mm film. Presently, this story got finished already and our design is 60% finished. However we can not play this film in our country because we are lack of some equipment and I produced it with a big size; we can play with a machine which cost over 100, 000 US dollars can play it. It is international use.

Film is the seventh art field which was very popular during 60th century. It was completely fall down during 1975 to 1979. This field got survived in 1980 and it was largely supported in 1989 but it was falling down again in 1993 due to the wide in flow of foreign films. It was extremely supported in 2003 and fall down again at the end of 2007.

Meanwhile the seventh art field was falling down Mr. Ly Bunyim who was an older film producer toll that there are many factors which lead our audiences don’t support our films because most of present films were produced to increase only in quantity not for quality. Sometime, when the audiences finish watching a story, they don’t know what the meaning of this story. Our present audiences were not the same as before because they are highly educated. He added, “I think that if all film producers want audiences support Khmer films, they should make films with a good quality.”

He further added one other factor is concerning to their limit budget, so our present producers just produce their film up to the budget. In addition, because they produce to satisfy only market need so they can not produce film with big size. To prevent the falling down of our Khmer film, we [film producers] need cooperation from the government too. Because the government can buy enough film materials for Cultural ministry to rent to our film producers so they can produce their films with the international standard. And we can bring our films to play at foreign countries too because our country is also a member of WTO with 100 countries. If the government does so, it can help our film gets survive again. I hope our Khmer producers will try their best to produce with their films with the best quality.

Mr. Bunyim said, during 60th century film producing was the most difficult, however they still produced in order to get supported from audiences. Why our present film producing which does not have any difficulties and they have enough film equipments they can not produce well?

May Titthara
Photographs by Heng Chivoan

Cambodia: the life, April 2008

Ly Bunyim, An Accidental Film Producer01-Apr-2008

Ly Bunyim, An Accidental Film Producer
01-Apr-2008