Nine Circles of Hell (1988, 105 min) opens in Phnom Penh, 1979, just after the fall of Pol Pot - a grainy scene follows a Czechoslovakian doctor through the ruins of Central Market, where he winds up an abandoned grandfather clock standing amid piles of shoes. It plays like real footage of the city’s liberation, though the Czechoslovakian-Cambodian production was actually shot shortly after Vietnamese forces occupied Phnom Penh. Directed by Milan Muchna and newly subtitled in English after decades in obscurity, it was the first Cambodian feature film ever screened at Cannes. Khmer with English subtitles | Free entrance
