Davy Chou’s Cinematic Travels

Directed by Davy Chou

On an impulse to reconnect with her roots, twenty-five-year-old Freddie (Ji-Min Park) travels to South Korea—her birthplace before she was adopted and raised in France. The headstrong young woman decides to seek out her biological parents in a country she knows very little about, and the choice steers her life in unexpected directions.

Directed by Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche

Blending real-life inspiration with narrative finesse, Algerian filmmaker Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche plays the lead role of Kamel, an ex-prisoner deported from France after serving his sentence. Kamel arrives back home as an outsider who doesn’t remember the language or local ways, and is a silent observer to a place split between tradition and modernity.

Directed by Gérard Blain

This 1973 film by—and starring—French director Gérard Blain follows Paul Boyer, a broke jazz pianist who, driven to support his wife and young son, embarks on a counterfeit money scheme. After being imprisoned for nine years, he finds that upon release his wife has remarried and won’t let him see his son, who has all but forgotten him.

Directed by Guy Gilles

In Gilles’ 1970 drama, twenty-year-old Pierre lives an unremarkable life in Paris with his piano teacher father, who he struggles to connect with. Spurred by the inspiration to upend his bleak routine, Pierre travels to his homeland of Tunisia to learn about his mother, who died when he was a child.

Directed by Kavich Neang

Cambodian director Kavich Neang’s debut feature follows twenty-year-old aspiring performer Samnang as he grapples with the impending demolition of his sprawling Phnom Penh apartment block, a landmark tenement known as the White Building. Samnang observes as his family and close-knit community become divided on the issue, and slowly comes to terms with the reality that his life will be upended.

A Day in the Country | Directed by Jean Renoir

Renoir puts his humanist, nature-drenched spin on the tender, comedic Guy de Maupassant story, which follows the unexpected romantic fallout of an urban family’s French countryside day trip.

Sunshine for the Poor | Directed by Alain Guiraudie

A young woman and a shepherd, both from different worlds, encounter each other and unexpectedly spend a day criss-crossing the Causses’ high plains looking for some of the shepherd’s animals that have wandered off.

Directed by Davy Chou

Nearly 400 films were made in Phnom Penh between 1960 and 1975, and only 30 of the films survive today. The Khmer Rouge burnt the films or allowed them to decay along with many of the country’s studios and cinemas. Director Davy Chou, the grandson of one of the most important film producers of the ‘Golden Age’ of Cambodian cinema, uses this film to help reconstruct the Phnom Penh cinematographic legacy.

Directed by Nadav Lapid

Yoav, a young Israeli who arrives in France barely speaking the language, is committed to forgetting about his home country and becoming a Frenchman. On his first night in Paris, Yoav is robbed throws himself on the mercy of a bourgeois French couple.

Directed by Claire Denis

Acclaimed director Claire Denis’ film follows newlyweds Shane (Vincent Gallo) and June (Tricia Vessey) on their Parisian honeymoon, though it’s just a front for Shane’s search to reconnect with the mysterious wife (Béatrice Dalle) of a neuroscientist (Alex Descas) with whom he was once obsessed. Shane becomes embroiled in a violent, bloodthirsty mystery that transforms him—and his marriage.

Directed by Davy Chou

Eighteen-year-old Bora leaves his village for employment on the construction sites of Diamond Island, an ultra-modern and upscale riverfront project emblematic of Cambodia’s future. He’s inducted into the fold with his fellow workers and finds his long-lost older brother, who introduces him to the area’s wealthy urban youth, and all the temptations that come with their lifestyle.