The Photo Phnom Penh Festival takes place until december 4. It gathers this year 24 exhibitions. Several events, as “News from the world: Latin America” and “The night of Europe – Asia” are organized and the famous ”image boats” celebrate the end of the monsoon season in Cambodge. The “’ïmage boats” on the Tonlé Bassac River are a tribute to this event. These floating screened images will navigate the river during the entire week of the festival.

Christian caujolle, art director of the Festival, talk about it :
“Every new edition, just like the stages of life, is an occasion to look back at the paths already taken and to dream of those to come. Photo Phnom Penh is no exception to this rule and we have tried both, to strengthen what we have achieved and to pursue our experimentation. The watchwords remain those of exchange and sharing, between the photographers and the public, between the photographers from Asia and from Europe, and, of course, between contemporaries who will engage the dialogue in the course of the “Intersection” project that we are offering once more. With no particular theme, but with the firm intention of bringing to light the various perspectives of photography today, the programming is nonetheless influenced by a kind of confrontation between the documentary style: from works in extremely difficult zones of conflict, to the exploration of daily life and lived experiences – and fiction: from the staging of a story, to the strange and the marvelous. There will be material for reflection on how “realism” manifests itself in photography today, a time in which technology has radically changed the production of images, as well as their diffusion and the way in which they are read. The greatest satisfaction is undeniably felt in being able to present a large sampling of work by young Cambodian photographers, of very high quality, diverse and demanding. This is proof-if ever a proof had been necessary—that there exist in this country artists who are asking to express themselves, and have been able to do so, thanks to the opening of work spaces and encounters such as the Studio Images at the Centre Culturel Français and the photography workshop at the Royal University of Fine Arts."

We have chosen five young cambodian photographers :
Kim Hak. Born in 1981. He obtains a diploma in Tourism at the National Institute of Management. He shows us the relationship between the Cambodian architectural heritage and the youth of Phnom Penh.

Chhin Taingchhea. Born in 1984 in Cambodia. He studies Painting at the Royal University of Fine Arts and works at the same time on photography. His black and white photos give buildings of the Royal University of Phnom Penh an intriguing timeless character.

Tith Narith. Born in 1985 in Cambodia. A very original offering attempting an approach to urbanism: this young Cambodian photographs maps, wherever he found them— abandoned, dog-eared, dirtied, almost destroyed—which have given rise to feverish bets and games. Is this a cartography of dashed hopes?

Li Wei. Born in 1970. Lives and works in Beijin, China. Here is a Chinese who defies the laws of gravity, makes characters fly, between fright and joy, in order to talk about the state of the world, of nature in danger, of the overweening importance of the city.

Philong Sovan. Born in 1986. Reporter and photographer for the daily newspaper Phnom Penh Post. Following his work on the families living in the old Catholic chapel in Phnom Penh, he has a new project, pushing his reflections on the portrait still further by lighting his models with his computer screen.

Clément Briend. Lives and works in Paris. Teaches photography at the univeristy of Valenciennes. He rephotographs his own projections done on building or trees… and projects them again, surprising and captivating us by visions at once gentle and astonishing, and invests spaces with a happiness close to a dream that might actually be realized.