Film Now Available via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, Xbox, and VHX
New York, NY (June 17, 2014) – In partnership with Sundance Institute, Director Kalyanee Mam is premiering her critically acclaimed documentary, A River Changes Course, digitally on iTunes today . The film is also available on Amazon Instant Video, Google Play,Microsoft Xbox, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, and VUDU.
The film is available for purchase directly through the ‘River’ website, http://www.ariverchangescourse.com via VHX.
River, which won the World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, paints an intimate portrait of three families living in contemporary Cambodia facing hard choices as forces of radical change transform the country’s landscape and the dreams of its people.
After premiering at Sundance, the film went on to win major awards at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Full Frame Film Festival, amongst others.
The film had a theatrical release in NYC and Los Angeles in October 2013, and has been conducting a grassroots screening tour since its early 2013 premiere, traveling to over 150 cities and screening for an estimated 10,000 audience members.
River was produced in association with The Documentation Center of Cambodia, was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Jeffrey C. Walker Family Foundation, USAID, and Sida, and made possible with the hard work and dedication of Chris Brown (editor), Ratanak Leng (producer), Youk Chhang (producer), David Mendez (composer), Zach Martin (sound editor), Angie Yesson (sound design), and David Lortsher (colorist).
A River Changes Course, the feature directorial debut by Kalyanee Mam, tells the story of three families living in contemporary Cambodia:In a village, Khieu Mok must leave to seek work in a Phnom Penh factory to help pay her family’s debts. But city life proves no better, and Khieu struggles between her need to send money home and her duty to be with her loved ones. In a fishing hamlet, Sari Math must quit school to help support his family. But as the fish catch dwindles, Sari and his family find their livelihood threatened. Deep in the jungle, Sav Samourn struggles as large companies encroach and “progress” claims the life-giving forests. She discovers there’s little room for wild animals, ghosts – and the home she has always known.
Together, Khieu, Sav Samourn and Sari’s stories depict the intended and unintended impacts of globalization, and force hard questions about how we understand ‘progress’ and ‘development’.
The New York Times considered River, “profound enough to stand on its own”, while the Los Angeles Times described the film as, “A deeply felt portrait of Cambodia…exquisite in its immediacy and agility.”
About Kalyanee Mam
Kalyanee Mam is committed to combining her passion for art and advocacy to tell compelling and universal stories. Born in Battambang, Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge Regime, she and her family fled to the refugee camps at the Thai-Cambodian border and eventually immigrated to the United States in 1981. For her debut documentary feature A River Changes Course (2013), Mam returned to Cambodia to depict the changes and struggles in her homeland.
Mam has also worked as a Cinematographer, Associate Producer, and Researcher on the 2011 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, about the global financial crisis, and as Co-Director and Co-Producer of documentary short, Between Earth & Sky (2010), about three young Iraqi refugee artists living in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. A graduate of Yale University and UCLA Law School, Mam also served as a legal consultant in Mozambique and Iraq.
About the Documentation Center of Cambodia
The Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) is a Cambodian non-governmental organization whose mission is to research and record the era of Democratic Kampuchea (April 17, 1975-January 7, 1979) for the purposes of memory and justice. The Center presently contains the world’s largest archive on the Khmer Rouge period with over 155,000 pages of documents and 6,000 photographs and is recognized as one of the leading research centers on the Cambodian genocide.
About Sundance Institute Artist Services Program
Sundance Institute is a global nonprofit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981. Through its artistic development programs for directors, screenwriters, producers, composers and playwrights, the Institute seeks to discover and support independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world, and to introduce audiences to their new work. The Institute promotes independent storytelling to inform, inspire, and unite diverse populations around the globe. Internationally recognized for its annual Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute has nurtured such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, An Inconvenient Truth, Spring Awakening, Born into Brothels, Trouble the Water, Light in the Piazza and Angels in America.
