One Dollar Webserie

From June 2012 to 2014, I led the audiovisual and multimedia department at the Bophana Center and Bophana Productions in Phnom Penh. Together with filmmaker Rithy Panh, we developed a documentary web series rooted in Cambodia. Young local filmmakers and multimedia journalists created five-to-seven-minute video portraits of people living below the poverty line in their communities, towns and villages.

Each One Dollar filmmaker was asked to place the camera within the daily lives of people surviving on one dollar a day, giving them the time and space to speak and share their experiences with an international audience. The aim was not to speak on their behalf, but to create a space for voices that are rarely heard. The filmmakers listened to their dreams, their desire for change, their efforts to escape poverty and their hope of living with a minimum of dignity. Many of the people featured did not present themselves as victims. They managed the uncertainties of daily life with the means available to them, within societies that often left them alone to face their difficulties.