A face illuminated by red light…

- Why don't you go back to the village now?
- I don't want to... I'm ashamed.
- No-one knows what has happened to you. If you like, I'll help you... Go back to the village.
- No. I'm ashamed. No-one knows what I do here in Phnom Penh. But I know.
- I'd like to make a film about your life, a portrait of you.

The film is situated as close as one can get to the life - and thus the spiritual death - of a prostitute. The ultimate social decay ends with the irreparable injustice of a process that cannot be reversed: the destruction of a body.

For me this is a stand I have to make, an attempt to make amends. Going back over my inability to react when I was faced with something intolerable. This film project stems from there. For me, distress is intermingled with anger. I have a grudge against the people who go to see the "tarts", the indifference, the grinding poverty, the people whose consciences are clear. And so the film will resemble this rage, fragmented, and with a cutting edge like that of the shattered debris of a dream.
Rithy Panh

Rithy Panh's most recent film listens to the prostitutes living in the "white building" in downtown Phnom Penh. For the Cambodian director, the most telling sign of the social collapse of a country torn by decades of war is the way the bodies of those who have nothing are economically and politically exploited: the dead soldiers leave behind children in underpaid jobs, or worst, in prostitution. "Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la Braise" doesn't show us characters, but people. Rithy Panh makes use of film to counter the objectification of those people's bodies and to allow their own voices to claim humanity and an individuality otherwise denied in their daily lives.

Director : Rithy Panh
Writer : Rithy Panh
Camera : Prum Mesar
Sound : Sear Vissal
Editing : Maris-Christine Rougerie
Music : Marc Marder

Production : Catherine Dussart Productions,
25, rue Gambetta,
92100 Boulogne, France
Tél : + 33 (0)1 4605 0022
Fax : +33 (0)1 4605 0259
Email : cdpdussart@aol.com

Co-Production : Institut National de l'Audiovisuel

with the participation of : France 3, France 5

Sales :
Institut National de l'Audiovisuel,
4, avenue de l'Europe,
94366 Bry-sur-Marne Cedex, France
Tél : +33 (0)1 4983 2000
Fax : +33 (0)1 4983 3182
Email : mgautard@ina.fr

Format: Betacam Digital - 16/9. Colour
Running time: 1h30
Year of production: 2006

FILMOGRAFIA / FILMOGRAPHY
2008 Un Barrage contre le Pacifique (em produção)
2007 Le Papier ne peut pas envelopper la braise
2005 Les Artistes du Théâtre Brûlé
2003 S-21, la machine de mort Khmère rouge / Les Gens d'Angkor
2001 Que la barque se brise, que la jonque s'entrouvre
2000 La Terre des âmes errantes
1998 Un soir après la guerre
1996 Bophana, une tragédie cambodgienne
1991 Cambodia, entre guerre et paix
1989 Site 2




FESTIVALS

FIPA | BIARRITZ, France
* Sélection "Creative Documentaries"

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PT
O mais recente filme de Rithy Panh escuta um conjunto de jovens mulheres que vivem juntas na mesma casa, no centro de Phnom Penh.
Todas elas têm de entregar à dona da casa o dinheiro que fazem ao venderem-se à noite aos homens que as procuram. Para o realizador cambodjano, o sinal mais evidente da falência social de um país devastado por décadas de guerra é o modo como são explorados económica e politicamente os corpos daqueles que não têm nada: os soldados mortos deixaram sozinhas crianças que se entregaram a trabalhos mal pagos ou à prostituição. "Le Papier ne Peut pas Envelopper la Braise" põe-nos em contacto com pessoas e não com personagens, contrariando através do cinema a objectificação dos seus corpos e permitindo que a sua própria voz reinvindique uma humanidade e uma individualidade que lhes é negada todos os dias.

O PAPEL NÃO PODE EMBRULHAR A BRASA (LE PAPIER NE PEUT PAS ENVELOPPER LA BRAISE), de Rithy Panh, França, 2006, 86'

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