These are five films you shouldn’t miss at the Cambodia International Film Festival which will take place from May 30 until June 4, 2023 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Baby Queen illuminates the struggles and joys of becoming who you want to be, and what it means to carve out a safe space in a society that is at times cruel to those who are different. Candid and clear-eyed in its portrait of queer life, the film celebrates radical self-acceptance as a personal yet deeply political act.

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Japan, 1944. Trained for intelligence work, Hiroo Onoda, 22 years old, discovers a philosophy contrary to the official line: no suicide, stay alive whatever happens, the mission is more important than anything else. Refusing to believe that World War II ended, Onoda continued to fight on a remote Philippine island until 1974.

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On an impulse to reconnect with her origins, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. The headstrong young woman starts looking for her biological parents in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new and unexpected directions.

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A mother refuses to speak about her childhood during the Cambodian genocide. Upset by her silence, her two sons decide to follow Antoine, a grandson of Armenian genocide survivors, photographing the ghosts of his ancestors in the Middle East, from Turkey to Iraq.

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The odyssey of the Cambodian Royal Ballet and the Khmer classical dance. A millenary art and the symbol of a restored identity. A movie that captures history, emotion, expression and the beauty of hand gestures. A movie about movement and the story behind it.

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For more information, please visit: https://www.cambodiaiff.com/