Rithy Panh

Indochina 1931, the Siam Golf. A small family strives against destitution. The mother realizes that the departure of her two grown children - Joseph 20 and Suzanne 16 - is ineluctable. Deceived by the colonial administration, she invested all of her savings in worthless, regularly flooded farmland. Driven to fight against the corrupted bureaucrats who conned her, she puts into place a crazy scheme: building a dam against the sea with the help of the villagers...

While much of Cambodia's cultural heritage was eradicated through the deaths of many artists during the Khmer Rouge era, the country's main theatrical structure, Preah Suramarit National Theatre remained standing throughout the Cambodian Civil War, even occasionally being used by the communist regime for official visits and propaganda pageants. Ironically, it was while the theatre was undergoing repairs in 1994 that it caught fire, was heavily damaged and has never been restored.

It is in this roofless performance hall that a Khmer classical dance troupe continues to practice daily, and a troupe of actors attempts to produce a Khmer-language adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac on a stage overgrown with weeds.