Historical figure
Ieu Pannakar
អៀវ បណ្ណាការ
Ieu Pannakar (អៀវ បណ្ណាការ), a Cambodian filmmaker and official, ran the country's film, photography and broadcasting department from 1955 to 1970. After 1979 he helped revive Cambodia's audiovisual sector, and in 2006 he founded the Bophana Center, an audiovisual archive in Phnom Penh, with the filmmaker Rithy Panh.[1][2][3]
Early life and training
Ieu Pannakar was born in 1931. His father, Ieu Koeus, served as prime minister and as president of the National Assembly.[1] He was among the first Cambodians to study cinema in France.[1] The Bophana Center says he graduated from the École de Vaugirard, now the École Louis Lumière,[2] while Norodom Sihanouk counted him among the graduates of the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris.[4]
Film and broadcasting
From 1955 to 1970 he headed the Film, Photography and Broadcasting Department, and he trained most of the country's technicians of that period.[2][5] Rithy Panh has called him one of the first Cambodian filmmakers and a man of many talents, who set up Cambodian television, flew as a pilot and worked as an engineer, but whose real passion was cinema.[3]
He often worked with Norodom Sihanouk on the king's feature and documentary films.[1] Sihanouk named him in his film team of 1966 to 1969, with Roeum Sophon and Som Sam Al, and again in his second team of 1992 to 1996.[4] The Angkor Database credits him as director of Norodom Sihanouk, quelques étapes de sa vie au service du Kampuchea, a 1965 Khemara Pictures film on Sihanouk's life.[1]
After 1979
After the Khmer Rouge regime fell in 1979, he returned to work to rebuild the country's film and broadcasting sector.[2] Rithy Panh said that Ieu Pannakar helped set up the Department of Cinema and gathered old films he found scattered through the streets and towns. In 1990 Panh and some friends came upon the collection, kept under the roof of the Cinema Department in Phnom Penh.[3] Ieu Pannakar later headed the film department of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.[6][7]
He was a senator, nominated by King Norodom Sihamoni, and Minister of the Royal Palace.[1][2][5]
Bophana Center
In 2005 Rithy Panh began work to save Cambodia's film and television record. With Ieu Pannakar, then in charge of the cinema department, he decided to set up a body that would collect the country's audiovisual archives and open them to the public.[8] The two men opened the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Center in December 2006, with support from the Ministry of Culture and other institutions.[6] Panh has called him a mentor who gave the center its building and guided him through its early years.[3]
Honors
On July 25, 2008, the French ambassador in Phnom Penh made him an Officier des Arts et des Lettres.[2] He was also honorary president of an association for the research, production and archiving of audiovisual documents.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Angkor Database, King Norodom Sihanouk Biopic, 1941-1963 (undated entry)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Bophana Center, About: Founders (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Documentary, Frako Loden, Rithy Panh on Film Preservation and the Importance of Memory (November 19, 2014)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Angkor magazine, Corinne Rivoallan, The King's Other Career (January 1997), on Angkor Database
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Angkor Database, Bophana Center (undated)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Phnom Penh Post, Bright Idea: Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre (June 16, 2010)
- ↑ Bophana Center, Our History (undated)
- ↑ Le Temps, Arnaud Dubus, La mémoire visuelle rendue aux Cambodgiens (in French, September 3, 2008)