'This Is Their Film': Angelina Jolie Tells A Story Of Khmer Rouge Survival
The film First They Killed My Father begins in 1975 Cambodia, during the rise of the Khmer Rouge. The hard-line communist regime aimed to deport an entire nation into the countryside and form an agrarian utopia — but their experiment failed. People were forced to work, and they were also tortured, starved and executed. In the end, around a quarter of the country's population — roughly 2 million people — died.
was directed by Angelina Jolie, and it's based on a memoir by human rights activist Loung Ung. Ung was 5 years old and living with her family in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge arrived and essentially emptied the city. At first, her family managed to stay together, but then her older siblings were sent to a camp for teenagers. Not long after, they also came for her
