Normally when we think of refugees, we think of people who have lost their homeland by being forced to leave it. In the case of Vy Phalla, a Cambodian woman who lives by harvesting the aquatic life of her native mangrove forests, it is her land that has been forced away — literally. Singapore, to support its rapid land extension program, imports vast quantities of sand from Cambodia. Gone the sand, gone, too, the crabs and snails, shrimp and clams that Vy and her family depend on for their livelihood. And, gone the culture that she loves.
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Kalyanee MamAward-winning filmmaker, lawyer and storyteller, Kalyanee Mam, is born in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge Regime, fled the refugee camps at the Thai-Cambodian border and eventually immigrated to the United States in 1981. She directed and produced A River Changes Course, it has won several awards, including the Grand Jury Award for World Cinema Documentary at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival. For the last three years Kalyanee has been living with an indigenous family in Areng Valley, located in Southwest Cambodia.