Movie screening Tuesday, February 20th, 2024 (in-person; 5:00pm; 40mn) followed after short break by Q&A session (hybrid; 5:45pm; 45mn); and
Thursday, February 15th, 2024 - Thursday, February 22nd, 2024 (on-demand film screening).
Speakers:
James Taing (co-director and co-producer)
Bunseng Taing (protagonist)
Moderator:
Quan Tran (Yale University, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Department)
Ghost Mountain is the story of Bunseng Taing, a Cambodian refugee who made his way to Connecticut in 1980 after surviving both the Killing Fields during the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge and a second horror never before documented. He was among 45,000 refugees who managed to escape to what they believed was safety in Thailand, only to be forced back over the Cambodian border in an area heavily infested with landmines.
In its debut in 2019, “Ghost Mountain: The Second Killing Fields of Cambodia” came in third place in the short documentary category by audience voting at the Sedona Film Festival. Since then, it has been featured at ten other film festivals and won the Best Feature Documentary award at the Houston Asian American Pacific Islander (HAAPI) Film Festival in 2020. The film has also been showcased on CSPAN and is currently available for distribution on PBS. In 2023, Bunseng Taing, the protagonist of “Ghost Mountain,” has released his memoir, “Under the Naga Tail”, which was featured as one of the books to read for AAPI month on Goodreads in 2023 and received a Bronze medal in the Inspiration Nonfiction category at the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards.James Taing is the son of Bunseng and has been interviewing and documenting the principal characters for the last ten years. While starting the Preah Vihear Foundation in 2016, he worked in Risk Investment and Finance. He co-authored his father’s memoir, Under the Naga Tail (2023).
This event is sponsored by Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Humanitarian Responses (PRFDHR), the Council on Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), and the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) at Yale.