Ghost Mountain: The Second Killing Fields of Cambodia

Not to be confused with Ghost Mountain: Second Killing Field, a Cambodian feature film by Leak Lyda.

Ghost Mountain: The Second Killing Fields of Cambodia is an American documentary film by James Taing and Virginia Lynch Dean. It tells the story of James Taing's father, Bunseng Taing, a Cambodian refugee who settled in Connecticut in 1980. In 1979 he was one of the refugees who reached Thailand and were then driven back into Cambodia across a border area full of landmines; the film's makers put their number at 45,000.

The Dangrek Mountains seen from Maw I-daeng, Thailand, looking east. Photo: Markalexander100, CC BY-SA 3.0

Film details
Director	James Taing and Virginia Lynch Dean
Kind of film	Documentary
Original language	English and Khmer
Production country	United States
Subjects	Film & Moving Image; History & Remembrance

Story

Bunseng Taing lived through the Khmer Rouge years before he fled to Thailand. In the film, James Taing describes how, by June 1979, the Thai government had lost patience with the slow pace of Western action and threatened to send refugees back into Cambodia. Bunseng Taing recalls buses reaching the camp early on June 12 or 13, a drive of 14 hours through the night, and soldiers ordering the refugees off the buses at gunpoint and telling them which way to go. He reached Thailand again three months later, and was accepted as a legal refugee at Buriram. Aid workers who were at the border camp also speak in the film, and say how little attention the Western and Thai press gave the expulsion.

In 2017 Bunseng Taing went back to the mountain where the refugees had been left. He has run a house painting business in Connecticut for more than thirty years.

Historical background

The film covers the forced return of Cambodian refugees from Thailand in June 1979, in the Dangrek Mountains (ជួរភ្នំដងរែក) near the Temple of Preah Vihear. The same events are the subject of Leak Lyda's Cambodian film Ghost Mountain: Second Killing Field. Sources give different numbers. The film's makers say 45,000 refugees, and Connecticut Public said more than forty thousand. In 2026 the political scientist In Sophal wrote that 40,000 to 50,000 refugees were pushed back between June 8 and June 13, 1979, and that thousands died, from landmines and from gunfire when they tried to turn back.

Release

The film was first shown in 2019 and placed third in the audience vote for short documentaries at the Sedona Film Festival. It went on to ten more festivals, and in 2020 it won Best Feature Documentary at the Houston Asian American Pacific Islander Film Festival. Lynch Dean said it took more than six years to make. Its writers are Dianne Wildman, Aaron Clar, Amy Kalafa and Ian Holden. It was scheduled to premiere on Connecticut Public Television on May 10, 2022, and the Public Broadcasting Service later carried a 28-minute version.

James and Bunseng Taing took part in screenings and discussions at Hunter College in New York in 2023 and at Yale University in February 2024, and James Taing at the University of Illinois in 2026. In May 2024 they spoke about the film on Connecticut Public's Where We Live.

Book and foundation

Bunseng Taing's memoir, Under the Naga Tail (2023), was written with James Taing. It won a bronze medal for inspirational nonfiction at the Readers' Favorite Book Awards. In 2016 James Taing started the Preah Vihear Foundation, a nonprofit that works to record Cambodian history, especially the rescue of refugees in the 1970s. He spoke about the film on a podcast whose episode description says the interview also covers the tensions between Cambodia and Thailand today.

References