CLMMRF IN THE PRESS

Contact: Richard Fitoussi
Executive Producer
info@yearzerodoc.com
www.yearzerodoc.com

YEAR ZERO TEASER OPENS CINEMA VERITE FILM FESTIVAL IN MONACO
FEATURE LENGTH FILM HIGHLY ANTICIPATED

October 15th, 2007

Paris - YEAR ZERO: STORY OF A LANDMINE MUSEUM, a promotional short featurette for the upcoming feature length release YEAR ZERO: STORY OF A KHMER ROUGE SOLDIER, opened to a captivated audience in Monaco during the inaugural ceremony of the Cinema Verite Film Festival. The distinguished audience included film stars Bianca Jagger and Maitresse de Ceremonie, Sharon Stone, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jody Williams, Human Rights activist, Lois Jenson, and Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte. Her Highness Princess Caroline of Hanover-S.A.R. Monaco introduced YEAR ZERO during the ceremony on the 10th of October. YEAR ZERO was selected from over 50 films to open the five day festival and ended up being screened more than any other film. After premiering in Monaco it traveled back to Paris to play in two different theaters around the Bastielle monument.

The twelve minute short featurette portrayed the humanitarian biography of the Cambodian Land Mine Museum founded by former Khmer Rouge child soldier Aki Ra who has since become a legendary landmine activist in his country. It is expected that Aki Ra has helped to clear over 50,000 mines and UXO’s from his country single handedly over the course of the last ten years. Today Aki Ra spends much of his time clearing landmines and UXO’s in former theaters of war now inhabited by civilian farmers and rural Khmers. His work with a Canadian based NGO helped to develop the only known landmine museum of its kind in the world that now serves as a relief center for children affected my landmines.

YEAR ZERO: STORY OF A LANDMINE MUSEUM was produced exclusively for the Cinema Verite Film Festival to help support international landmine awareness but was also developed as a means to promote the upcoming feature length documentary YEAR ZERO : STORY OF A KHMER ROUGE SOLDIER due out later in 2008. The full length film tells the story of Aki Ra who now clears landmines that he once laid and Im Chen who builds schools near a forced labor project she once controlled during the Pol Pot Regime. An International War Crimes Tribunal is set to begin in the spring of 2008 where many senior Khmer Rouge leaders will be held responsible for their actions. Using original footage shot by the perpetrators themselves, the film provides an insight into how nearly two million Cambodians perished under Khmer Rouge rule. The tribunal forms the backdrop for the stories of Aki Ra and Im Chen who have sought redemption in their own unique ways.