CLMMRF IN THE PRESS

Every Picture Tells a Story - by Elizabeth Covington, The Telluride Watch
TELLURIDE, COLORADO, June 3, 2004

There's no separating international politics from Telluride Mountainfilm Festival, as almost every entry in this year's program shows. But how often does Mountainfilm influence global events? Ask photographer Richard Fitoussi, whose ongoing work with Cambodian landmine activist Aki Ra got an $85,000 infusion of cash after Fitoussi's speech and slide show about Ra's work at Mountainfilm last year

When I called photographer Richard at his office in Toronto, he was helping the Royal Canadian Mounted Police track a fraudulent check for $35,000.

Fitoussi, a photographer who is working to establish a land mine museum in Cambodia, had just called the police.

The problem began with a phone call from a man who identified himself as the representative of a very significant donor for Fitoussi's museum project.

"He has a thick accent," Fitoussi said, imitating a Middle Eastern accent.

The next day, a $35,000 check from the donor cleared the bank. Fitoussi was thrilled.

On Monday, the donor's representative called back.

"Now I will direct you where to deposit the money," the man said, naming several bank accounts in Southeast Asia.

Suspicious, Fitoussi called the cops: by Tuesday afternoon, they had a theory: The erstwhile donor was trying to launder Al Qaeda money through Fitoussi's project.

Life is not always this exciting in Fitoussi's home offices in Toronto. A struggling photographer, his bread and butter work is celebrity shots, which fund his travels around the world collecting extraordinary photographs and stories.

At Mountainfilm 2000, he collected some good luck as well.

Fitoussi first traveled to Cambodia in 2000 to photograph the 20th anniversary of that country's killing fields, remote area throughout the country where educated and professional classes were tortured and murdered by dictator Pol Pot's regime.

In the course of that journey, Fitoussi met Aki Ra.

"Part of the story I came back with was a man who clears land mines fast, with no money and without dogs. He uses a hammer, a wrench and a stick and can clear about 80 mines in a day," said Fitoussi describing Ra and his work.

Ra was orphaned at age 5; the Khmer Rouge killed his parents and then forced Ra to fight for them. Under his tutelage, he learned to lay mines and set booby traps. "I had my first gun at age 10," Ra writes on his web site.

"I'm the same age as Ra," said Fitoussi, now 30. "When I was ten, I was in Winnipeg playing with Legos."

When Ra was 13, the Vietnamese army overtook his village and conscripted him. Three years later, he joined the Cambodian National Army. When the civil was ended in 1993, Ra went to work for the United National, and other organizations, de mining the Cambodian countryside.

He branched out to start clearing mines on his own.

Ra's methods are unorthodox: He doesn't wear a Kelvar suit for protection. He deactivates most mines he encounters, instead of bowing them up as the agencies do. After deactivating a mine, he removes the most dangerous material for his own bombs, with which he detonates mines he cannot detonate safely.

At the request of a village or monastery, Ra rides his bicycle deep into the countryside, often venturing three or four hours from home to clear an area.

Though Ra's personal mission seems commendable, his lone-wolf style is not sanctioned by the national and international agencies that share it. They disapprove of his disdain for the recognized protocol - not wearing protection, not posting signs, not surveying an area once he has cleared it.

But Fitoussi puts Ra's methods in context. "What if we were neighbors?" he asked. "And we knew there were land mines in our backyards, and he came over and cleared the back yard where our kids played.

"Wouldn't you say, "That is great! Awesome!' Aki Ra is one man, and, at least until the bog organizations come in and do a survey, he is saving lives."

Currently Ra has established a museum of sorts in the front of his home, where he has stored more than 6,000 pieces of land mines from the Cambodian wars. He displays several of his own paintings as well, depicting his memories of fighting for the Khmer Rouge and the National Army. As resources permit, Ra brings home children maimed by land mines, to outfit them with prosthetics, and educate them. Donations to the museum fund Ra's treks into the killing fields, and support his work with their latest victims.

All this takes place outside of Angkor Wat, the complex of ancient temples built between 878-1191 A.D. that is considered one of the seven manmade wonders of the world.

"After tourists have spent three days looking at temple after temple, they want something different," said Fitoussi, of his museum's visitor appeal. The story of the Khmer Rouge and what they did in Cambodia's killing fields, a brutalization that continues today, is a story visitors need to hear. Enter Aki Ra and his museum

After touring Cambodia's killing fields with Aki Ra, Fitoussi returned to Canada to find a way to help him build a proper museum and facility for his rehabilitation work. Committed, but not quite knowing where to begin, he wrote a speech and assembled a slide show, bringing it to nearby Canadian schools, raising a few hundred dollars.

Fitoussi was glad for the contributions, but knew they wouldn't build a museum.

Meanwhile, Ra's situation took a turn for the worse. Local officials perceived his unofficial museum as siphoning off some of the tourist business. There were death threats; Ra's dogs were poisoned.

"The Khmer Rouge did not leave," said Fitoussi philosophically. "They just changed uniforms."

The two men's luck turned when, through a Telluride connection (Telluride resident Bev McTigue, a family friend), he was invited to bring his speech and slide show to Mountainfilm 2003.

After Fitoussi's presentation, an audience member raised his hand and asked how he could help.

Fitoussi met with him after the show.

"He was pushing me," Fitoussi remembered of his first encounter, "He wanted to see how passionate I was." I gave him the whole program, told him the total budget was about $214,000 and that we could get things started for about $100,000 US.

He said to me, "OK. You have your money." Needless to say Fitoussi was floored. I knew something was up. He was dressed all in black.

When the donor started to walk away, Fitoussi ran after him. I told him I didn't like donors who gave money and didn't watch where the money goes. He looked at me like, "Christ kid. You have some nerve."

On the flight home, Fitoussi picked up a copy of Rolling Stone, and was reading about the summer's upcoming blockbuster movies and a producer named Tom Shadyac. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card of the man in black: It was a match. For the rest of the summer, Fitoussi sent information about the Aki Ra land mine museum and rehabilitation project to Shadyac's foundation. In late August, he received a check for $85,000 (US).

His good luck had just begun. Next, Fitoussi contacted George Mann, an architecture professor at Texas A&M University. A graduate class of Mann's students has designed a rehabilitation center in Nicaragua. Soon Mann had agreed to have his class design Ra's museum as well, an in-kind donation that Fitoussi values at $150,000. The students didn't stop there, but went on to raise $10,000 toward the building, and are heading to Cambodia soon to help build it.

Fitoussi's run of good luck continued. His next challenge: Figuring out how to purchase land and then oversee construction in Cambodia from his Toronto home base. Property titles were clouded, a result of the massive displacement that followed Cambodia's civil war.

Meanwhile, local bureaucrats were becoming less tolerant of Aki Ra.

In the midst of untangling plans for the Aki Ra project, Fitoussi received a call from Roy Clark, a Canadian just back from visiting Angkor Wat and Ra.

"Aki Ra told me to call you," Clark told Fitoussi, going on to ask: "Who are you>"

Clark, a successful businessman, had taken a year off to travel around the world; now home in Canada, he wanted to help Aki Ra.

When Fitoussi finished his story, Clark offered to take another year long sabbatical, in which he would live in Cambodia and oversee the land purchase and construction of the project - as a volunteer.

"This man is a diplomat, a successful businessman. He could sell an iceberg to an Eskimo?" said Fitoussi.

Clark moved to Cambodia last fall. After schmoozing with local officials, he found a perfect site for the new museum, cleared the title and bought the property.

This summer, if all proceeds as planned, construction on the museum will start.

Fitoussi has written a series of grants, but has raised only $1000 from foundations, so far.

"With reality TV," he said, "it is just getting harder and harder to get people's attention. They don't know what war looks like."

Fitoussi exudes gratitude when he tells his story. He values the work of the Texas students at $150,000; volunteer Clark bills out at $1,500 a day. And then of course, there is Shadyac, who started his ball of serendipitous, good fortune rolling, and the McTigues, who initially brought Fitoussi to Telluride.

"I hope that both my museum and this booklet will help explain to the people that, for us, the horror is not over yet," writes Ra in his web site."We still need help in dealing with this massive problem and I feel that the world is not fully aware of the scale of the situation. We have 27,000 victims of land mines in the Siem Reap province alone, and that figure rises daily. Information regarding the number of mines in this country and other parts of the world is only an estimate, as there are many minefields. It may take up to fifty to one hundred years to find and clear every mine. You can help us by informing people in your country about the problems we face in Cambodia and hopefully, we will eventually get enough support to assist us to speed up the landmine clearance process."