Bophana celebrates its 19th anniversary: A bastion of living memory in the heart of Cambodia

Yesterday, the Bophana Center, an audiovisual bastion in the Cambodian capital, celebrated its 19th anniversary. Founded on December 4, 2006, by French-Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh and Ieu Pannakar, the institution celebrates an odyssey dedicated to preserving and transmitting Khmer cultural heritage in a country marked by the scars of the Khmer Rouge.

Roots Anchored in Resistance

The name “Bophana” evokes an intimate tragedy: that of a young woman tortured and executed in 1977 at S-21 for having written secret love letters under the Khmer Rouge dictatorship. Rithy Panh made a poignant film about her in 1996, which became the first step in a broader project born in the 1990s. A survivor of the Khmer Rouge camps and a graduate of IDHEC in 1988, Panh transformed himself into a guardian of memory in the face of the near-total destruction of Cambodian cultural productions between 1975 and 1979.

Inaugurated in the “White House,” a modernist building from the 1960s inspired by Le Corbusier and Vann Molyvann and restored with the support of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture, the center is located on Street 200 in Phnom Penh. A member of FIAT and FIAF, it collects films, photos, sound recordings, and writings from around the world: more than 700 hours of video, 210 hours of audio, and 10,000 images, all freely accessible through the Hanuman platform.

Since 2006, over 240,000 visitors — students, researchers, and journalists — have explored these treasures, rediscovering a forgotten Cambodia. Rithy Panh asserts: “Returning cultural memory to Cambodians helps fight the democratic deficit.”

Archiving, Creation, Training: An Inseparable Triptych

Over these 19 years, Bophana has excelled in three main pillars. Archiving involves digitizing gems such as the films of King Norodom Sihanouk and NGO documentaries from France, the United States, and Cambodia itself. In 2025, the French artist Danhôo donated his painting Partage, strengthening Bophana’s role as a sanctuary.

Creation thrives through Bophana Productions, a unit that trains young people in film professions under the guidance of Panh and both local and international experts. Grants such as the Henry Luce Foundation’s (USD 500,000, 2022–2025) support these emerging talents, including five former students awarded in 2021 for My Home. Free weekly screenings, a Youth Cine Club, festivals like CIFF since 2008, and provincial tours (23,000 spectators in 2013) enliven Cambodia’s cultural life.

Training radiates outward with workshops and conferences on Khmer history and architecture, as well as exhibitions featuring local and foreign artists. In April 2025, Bophana hosted Echoes of Memory for the Season of Cambodia, blending past and future. The Acts of Memory educational app, linked to the ECCC tribunal, compiles survivor testimonies filmed by students and distributed in Khmer and English in schools.

19 years of influence, challenges, and hopes

Despite Covid-19, which suspended its activities in 2021, Bophana quickly reopened its doors: a cozy cinema hall, a multimedia library, and a friendly café. Integrated into events such as Photo Phnom Penh 2025 (November 19–December 19), from the National Museum to SraArt, it weaves together memory and contemporary creation.

Today, under the direction of Chea Sopheap, the son of survivors, the center embodies national reconciliation, in parallel with the ECCC trials launched in 2006. It trains hundreds of filmmakers, produces dozens of documentaries on the Khmer Rouge era, and opens its archives to the world.

At 19 years old, Bophana is not a mausoleum—it is a living workshop where Khmer youth rewrite their history, screening after screening.

Visit it: Tuesday to Saturday, 2 p.m.–6 p.m. Admission is free, memory infinite.