TEXT AND CINEMATOGRAPHIC STILLS BY KAVICH NEANG
Phnom Penh’s iconic White Building was a neighborhood in itself, existing within this half-a-kilometer long building. For over five decades, it was appropriated by its inhabitants, from a modernist arid living environment to one that reflected the daily lives of the different generations of residents whose lives were tied to it. The 2017 destruction of the building by the Cambodian authorities fundamentally shook these lives. Former resident Kavich Neang created two films (one documentary and one fiction) around the White Building and we asked him for a short text to accompany his cinematographic stills.
After the Khmer Rouge regime collapsed in 1979, my father had heard on national radio that the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts was calling for all artists who survived the regime to come live in the White Building in Phnom Penh. My parents then traveled from their homeland – Pursat province, the western part of Cambodia – to the capital city in order to seek a new life and reside in the well-known building, known then as “Bodeng Sor.”
The White Building was built in 1963 under King Sihanouk, who envisioned the rapidly increasing population of the city, and thus planned on the construction of such a building for thousands of people. It was designed by Cambodian architect Lu Ban Hap and Russian architect Vladimir Bodiansky, to primarily serve lower and middle-class Cambodian people’s housing needs. During the Khmer Rouge regime between 1975 and 1979, the White Building was completely emptied and abandoned. It was full of trash and dust when my parents moved in for the first time. My father was a sculptor, and he was one of many artists who lived and worked in the White Building during this period. I was born in 1987 in the hospital near the building, and for most of my life, I grew up with neighborhood youth whose parents were also artists. When I was a kid, I often heard and watched my neighbors practice Cambodian traditional music and rehearse classical dances. It was always really fun and beautiful to see them perform sometimes at their homes in the building. Years later, I did not expect that I would be interested learning Cambodian dance and music from them.
When I was around eight years old, I remember seeing one of my neighbors come by my home to meet with my mother. They were discussing a rumor that the government planned to buy out our building soon – I don’t remember how much money was being offered by the government, since they talked about gold instead of currency. A few years later, this rumor kept coming back to us, but everyone in the building seemed to not take it seriously then.
In the early 2000s, there was a huge fire in the wooden squats that surrounded the White Building. After the fire was put out, the owners of the houses in the squats were not allowed to rebuild their homes on their lands in this area. Instead, they were offered new land or houses outside the city. Similarly, in July 2008, my family and I woke up in shock around 4am after hearing our neighbors screaming, running back and forth in the corridor. When we opened the door and saw thousands of armed police and military, as well as local authorities like firefighters, it was like seeing war happening inside and outside our building. The White Building residents were told not to leave their homes, and to stay silent.
The sound of guns fired in the sky, and fire engines started spreading water to people who were protecting their homes in the squats, though most of them were not able to protect themselves from this attack without anything in their hands. Around 6 am, bulldozers began to smash down all the wooden houses, and in less than one hour, hundreds of houses were flattened. We did nothing but look up from the rooftop of the White Building, witnessing this horrible event.
In 2014, the Phnom Penh municipal announced the plan to evacuate people living in the White Building, which became a reality in 2017. This time we were asked to leave with compensation, but in our mind, regardless of our decision we had no hope to win over the government. During the last week at the White Building before we all had to move out, I grabbed a camera to film and interview my family and neighbors about their memories.
I started writing my debut fictional feature film White Building in early 2016 with the hope of shooting this film in the building, but after the government’s announcement in 2017, I had no choice in the matter. Despite this limitation, it pushed me to grab a camera and start with the people living there. While my family and neighbors were packing their belongings, they shared their stories and emotions with me, and finally, we left our home in tears. Later on, I met a French editor called Félix Rehm in Paris, who was interested in editing this footage. We finally managed to finish this full-length documentary Last Night I Saw You Smiling in 2019, and later in the same year, I had the chance to shoot White Building. But the film had to be shot in entirely different buildings due to the White Building’s demolition in 2017. White Building follows the story of SAMNANG, aged 20, who faces the demolition of his lifelong home in Phnom Penh and the struggles of his family, friends, and neighbors that arise and intersect in this moment of sudden change. ■
