Producing films, organizing film festivals and seeking out Cambodian artists all make up a typical year for filmmaker Johnny Mam.
After graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 2012 with a degree in film and electronic arts, Mam almost immediately became part of the Cambodia Town Film Festival team, a team of just three at the time.
The festival is an annual celebration of Cambodian filmmakers that gives them an opportunity to show off their work and network with other artists. They also specialize in films that “deal with Cambodian social political conflicts, traditions, challenges and characters … and encourage new dialogue on a global scale,” according to the Cambodia Town Film Festival website.
“We went to the East Coast to look for communities within the Cambodian culture,” Mam said. “From there we came back to the West Coast and did a tour here and gained a lot of exposure. For the first year we had a full house. A full weekend, it was crazy.”
This year marked Mam’s fifth anniversary organizing the event, and his fourth being the Chief of Operations of the festival. The first year consisted of handling all the technical aspects, organizing all the vendors and volunteers involved and going on tour promoting the festival to recruit filmmakers interested in contributing.
Giving the Cambodian film community a chance in the spotlight has always been on Mam’s radar. He recalled telling his cinema studies professor, Jerry Mosher that he was going to bring more Cambodian film into focus.
“I told him, ‘there really isn’t much of a Cambodia cinema right now but you know what, I’m going to change that,’” Mam said.
Mosher recalls Mam’s drive and interest in creating an impact for his community.
“It was apparent that [Mam] really responded to films that had a social impact,” Mosher said. “We discussed that there were so few films about Cambodia’s recent history and contemporary culture and I encouraged Johnny to explore that through his filmmaking.”
This dream stemmed from feeling isolated from Cambodian culture, growing up in Salt Lake City until he attended Cal State Long Beach, where he met his first Cambodian friends and became an active member of the Cambodian Student Society on campus.
“I had a culture shock of my own culture,” Mam said. “I’d never met people that I had so much in common with. I fell in love and was intrigued and wanted to know more and my best tool was my camera.”
Following the full house, Mam was made Chief of Operations, where he helps choose and curate the films featured each year at the festival. Now having notoriety and popularity, there is less work going into finding the films and more work going into choosing them.
“It’s a very small, tightknit community — so we get first dibs on anything that comes out that’s related to Cambodia,” Mam said. “And people in the industry, we’re getting their attention now.”
Among these “industry people” Mam is referring to includes filmmaker Angelina Jolie, who had her film “First They Killed My Father” featured in this year’s Cambodia Town Film Festival. The movie is from the perspective of a young girl living in the Khmer Rouge era, a time where the Communist party was attempting Cambodian genocide and nearly two million Cambodians were killed.
The 5-year-old girl is forced to train as a child soldier while her siblings are sent away to concentration camps. The film is the first of its kind, set in Cambodia and with dialogue spoken entirely in Khmer. It has already been selected as a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film in the 90th Academy Awards.
“She’s an honorary Cambodian now,” Mam joked about Jolie. “She’s very involved in Cambodian culture and respectfully made a beautiful movie. ‘First They Killed My Father’ is a very important film in the Cambodian community. This is the film that tells the story of my culture.”
Mam even got the chance to work with Jolie while her film was still in production. The two met two years ago while separately working on their own movies in Cambodia. Jolie became interested in the festival and reached out to Mam months later,asked them to watch a cut of her film and give their notes and critiques.
As well as working with big names such as Jolie, the Cambodia Town Film Festival has now facilitated over 50 films in just the five years it has been established. It has shined the spotlight on many Cambodian filmmakers that otherwise would not get the chance to have people see their work.
While films produced in the Cambodian community typically make up the bulk of the festival, Mam said that a goal of his would be to feature various types of cinema and culture in the future.
“We would like to incorporate other types of cinema from the Laos community, the Vietnamese community, and really any other underprivileged or marginalized population,” said Mam. “One of our missions is to bring films into Long Beach that nobody else can see.”
Mam has also been busy finishing his first documentary, “In Search of Balance” where he explores the current lack of appreciation for nature in the world. He is also wrapping up his feature film, “In the Life of Music” which is set to release this winter.