The Cambodian Room (2009)

Antoine D’Agata, a photographer from Magnum Agency, is in Phom Penh (Cambodia). Drugs, sex and errance are his autobiographical subjects, but in Cambodia his artistic trail seems to reach an utmost point.

After devoting his art to picture desolated landscapes and borderline realities all around the world, Antoine D’Agata focuses his art on body and flesh, in a narrow room.

In Cambodia he spends many weeks locked in Lee’s room. Antoine lives a kind of desperate and paradoxal « love story »  with Lee, a prostitute, smoking dope and trying to take pictures of his intimate relationship with her.

This film catches the hidden part of his art-life; his choice of living sex and drugs as both cure and conviction. An apocalyptic and sublime course, similar to the ones of other heretic artists of contemporary culture, from Kerouac to Artaud, from Bacon to Pasolini.

CREDITS

Written, edited and directed by: TOMMASO LUSENA, GIUSEPPE SCHILLACI. Produced by: VIVIANA QUEIROLO BERTOGLIO, OLGA PRUD’HOMME FARGES, TOMMASO LUSENA DE SARMIENTO, GIUSEPPE SCHILLACI. Featuring: ANTOINE D’AGATA, LEE, PHILIPPE AZOURY. Line producer: GIUSEPPE SCHILLACI. Cinematographer: TOMMASO LUSENA DE SARMIENTO. Original music: NICOLA TESCARI, CHRIS TSOUPAS. Additional camera: GIUSEPPE SCHILLACI. Sound: SEAR VISSAL. Assistant editing and post-production: MASSIMILIANO MINISSALE. Sound design: RICCARDO SPAGNOL. Color correction: ERCOLE COSMI. Translations: Peter Henderson, Kamala Gravagna, Sok Michaël. Press:Lionella Bianca Fiorillo www.storyfinders.it. Accounting: Rossella Procaccino. Graphic designer: Alessia Mastriforti. An Italian French co-production: DOWNTOWN PICTURES / KOLAM PRODUCTIONS with the support of Cnc and Procirep-Angoa. http://www.kolam.fr/home_en.php Developed with EURODOC (http://www.eurodoc-net.com/en/).

WEB:  www.cambodianroom.net

• SPECIAL PRIZE of the JURY, Torino Film Festival 2009
• International Premiere at IDFA (International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam) 2009
• Ufficial selection EURODOC SCREENINGS 2010
• AUDIENCE PRIZE at Festival Point Doc 2011
• Doc/It Professional Award 2010
• PRIX BEST PHOTOGRAPHY CINEMA DOC 2010
• PRIX BEST EDITING CINEMA DOC 2010
• PRIX BEST FILM CINECITTA’ LUCE 2010

• ON THE AIR on ARTE (France/Germany) with 5% share (2011)
•  dvd published by CONTRASTO and CINECITTA’ LUCE (2012)
• dvd re published by Collection Opus (France) nel 2018

TRAILER

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBN_1YWyOs[/youtube]