Cambodia: Last News

A rat catcher who has grappled with 50,000 rodents has said that vermin are "getting bigger and bolder". And Kieran Sampler isn't just exaggerating, having caught one monstrous rat that measured 22 inches from head to tail - the same size as a Yorkshire Terrier.

Former British pop singer Gary Glitter was on Tuesday ordered to pay a woman he sexually abused as a child more than $637,000 in damages.The 80-year-old, whose real name is Paul Gadd, shot to fame in the 1970s as a “glam-rock” star before he was later repeatedly convicted and jailed for child sex crimes.Gadd was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2015 after being found guilty of indecently assaulting three girls in the 1970s.One of those three victims, who said she was 12 when Gadd raped and sexually assaulted her, sued the singer at London’s High Court for damages caused by the abuse.Judge Amanda Tipples on Tuesday awarded the woman $647,730 in damages after a hearing in March at which Gadd was not present or represented by lawyers.The damages awarded to the woman, who is now 60 years old and cannot be named as a victim of sexual abuse, included $485,400 for loss of earnings.Gadd could not be reached for comment. Earlier this year, he lost a bid to be released from prison on parole.Gadd was first jailed in 1999 for possession of child pornography and later moved to Cambodia, but was deported in 2002 due to suspected sex offenses.In 2006, a Vietnamese court convicted him of committing obscene acts with two girls aged 10 and 11 and sentenced him to four years in jail.

Soccer Aid returned with a bang on Sunday night, 9 June, as Robbie Williams led stars onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge.The charity football extravaganza, which has been a highlight since 2006, aims to score big for UNICEF, having already netted a staggering £90 million to support vital work in countries like Cambodia. The England squad boasted big names including Robbie, 50, Paddy McGuinness, Erin Doherty, Danny Dyer, and Bobby Brazier. Meanwhile, the World XI team was just as glittering, with Roman Kemp, Usain Bolt, Tommy Fury, Martin Compston, and Lee Mack lacing up their boots.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Los Angeles- and Bangkok-based film sales joint venture EST N8 is expanding into theatrical distribution in parts of Southeast Asia. As a first step, it will release the Michael Mann-directed “Ferrari” in Thailand on Thursday and in Myanmar on June 21. The film, which premiered in Venice in September last year, was released in other territories between December and February.

The fourth season of BBC travel and adventure series Race Across the World comes to an end on Wednesday 29 May, but it has been announced that there will be a special extra episode immediately after the finale airs that gives fans a behind the scenes look at the making of the series.The show, which began on April 10, has followed five two-person teams as they race across Eastern Asia, in the hope of winning a £20,000 grand prize. Each pair has to complete the 15,000km journey from Japan to Indonesia without using air travel, and with a budget of just £1390 per person – the equivalent air fare for travelling the race route.They can work for money or for bed and board during their trip, but have no access to the internet or telephones.

Siddhant Adlakha A chilling historical drama rendered with impeccable sleight of hand, Rithy Panh’s “Rendez-vous avec Pol Pot” (“Meeting With Pol Pot“) reveals its political dimensions through layers of obfuscation. While based partially on real events (and on the writings of American war journalist Elizabeth Becker), it crafts a fictitious tale of three French journalists attempting to interview Cambodian dictator Pol Pot in 1978.

Rithy Panh has dedicated the lion’s share of his career to interrogating the genocidal Khmer Rouge era in his native Cambodia, and it is no trivial obsession. Panh fled Phnom Penh when he was just 11, and after his family was devastated in the Killing Fields, he escaped to a Thai refugee camp at 15. Now 60, Panh has been committed to keeping the memory of the impact of Pol Pot’s tyrannical regime alive in documentary, narrative and animated film.

Forbes has released its annual 30 Under 30 list for 2024 in Asia, which features the likes of Voice Of Baceprot, IVE and more.Released today (May 16), the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list shines a light on individuals aged below 30 who have made a significant impact in their respective fields, including entertainment and sports, science and activism, entrepreneurship and more.This year’s entertainment and sports portion of the list is headlined by Indonesian metallers and stars of NME’s The Cover, Voice Of Baceprot. Trailing behind them are K-pop outfit IVE, Japanese pop-rock group Atarashii Gakko!, Filipino rapper Ez Mil, Indian rapper Arpan Kumar Chandel (aka King), Japanese singer Aina The End and Indonesia’s Mahalini Raharja.The list also includes Chinese-New Zealand actress Jess Hong, Thai singer-actor Vachirawit Chivaaree, also known as Bright, and Indian singer-songwriter Pavithra Chari.This year’s North American 30 Under 30 list featured the likes of Boygenius, Ethel Cain, Dominic Fike, Gracie Abrams, Latto, Reneé Rapp, Ice Spice, Peso Pluma, Trippie Redd, Kali Uchis and more.This year’s European 30 Under 30 list features PinkPantheress, Nia Archives, Cat Burns, FLO, Holly Humberstone and more.Last year’s Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list included K-pop girl groups NewJeans and Le Sserafim, Cambodian rapper VannDa, Singaporean singer Shye, South Korean singer LØREN, Indian singer-rapper Ambika Nayak – known professionally as Kayan – and Hong Kong singer Michael “MC” Cheung Tin-fu.The entertainment and sports category of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list was judged by ONE Championship co-founder and Group President Hua Fung Teh and Caldecott Music Group CEO and founder Kuok Meng Ru.

Michaela Zee “The Cleaning Lady” has been renewed for Season 4 at Fox, Variety has confirmed. The news comes ahead of the two-hour Season 3 finale, which will air May 21 at 8 p.m. ET.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Skyline Media, a leading Vietnamese studio, is getting ready for Cannes with a string of sales on its local and Southeast Asian film sales slate. Since appearing at FilMart in Hong Kong in March, Skyine has licensed Cambodian horror title “The Night Curse of Reatrei” to Taiwan’s Cai Chang International and to Exponenta Film for the CIS region.

With the fourth series of BBC smash hit Race Across the World now well underway, viewers at home have been excitedly watching a new set of teams try and duke it out for a coveted cash prize by travelling from Japan to Indonesia with only a limited budget. So far, the five teams have made it from Japan to Cambodia after travelling through South Korea and Vietnam, with the gap between each pair getting tighter and tighter.

Sheynnis Palacios, the reigning Miss Universe 2023, is causing a stir across Asia. Her most recent adventure? The captivating and culturally diverse Thailand.

Ben Croll Prosecutor-turned-immersive storyteller Victoria Bousis has seen the often-separate strands of her professional lives converge in unexpected ways as she’s toured her recent project, “Stay Alive, My Son.” Using Cineplay – a mix of cinema with gameplay mechanics – the immersive experience adapts the memoires of human rights activist Pin Yathay, allowing users to embody Yathay’s story of heartbreak and hope through the Cambodian genocide. After premiering out of South by Southwest and playing Venice Immersive, “Stay Alive, My Son” showcased at this week’s NewImages Festival in Paris and was recently selected for Annecy’s VR competition in June.

Refresh for latest…: As it crossed the $1B international box office milestone this past weekend, Warner Bros again owned the frame with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and its third session haul of $33.7M from 71 markets. That was good for a 47% drop from the previous weekend and lifts the overseas cume to $278.6M and global to $436.6M. Meanwhile, WB and Legendary’s other major title in the marketplace, Dune: Part Two, now has a shot at getting to $700M worldwide.

The Gospel Of The Beast, directed by the Philippines’ Sheron Dayoc, picked up the Golden Star Award for Best Southeast Asian Film at the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (HIFF) in Vietnam. 

Warner Bros/Legendary Entertainment’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is out and roaring at the international box office, generating $15.9M from 49 markets through its first two days overseas (Wed/Thurs). Not included in that total is the strong China opening day today which came in at an estimated RMB 96.9M ($13.4M).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Directors Factory Philippines,” an omnibus film project initiated by the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, has completed production in the historic city of Dapitan. Operating since 2013, when it kicked off in Taiwan, the Directors’ Factory works with a new partner country each year to mentor eight budding filmmakers who are preparing ambitious first or second feature projects that they will make in pairs. The Philippines was selected in November. The four resulting co-written and co-directed short films will be screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight (aka Quinzaine des Cineastes) in May. Dapitan, a city in The Philippines’ Zamboanga Peninsula, known for its many shrines and as the place of exile of Philippines’ national hero, Jose Rizal.

UK director, writer and cinematographer Molly Manning Walker, who won the Cannes Un Certain Regard prize last year for How To Have Sex, has been selected for the festival’s four-and-a-half month La Résidence program in Paris.

In one of the most compelling films to hold its world premiere at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, archive footage shows an apparently amiable man dressed in black sitting for an interview with a Yugoslav journalist. The year is approximately 1977.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at actor Ravi Patel (Wonder Woman 1984, Animal Patrol) suited up in Kiss Of The Con Queen, the true crime thriller inspired by the life of accused fraudster Hargobind Tahilramani dubbed the “con queen of Hollywood” after allegedly impersonating movie executives in an elaborate and high profile fraud scheme. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Escaping Man,” a Chinese drama feature about a man dragged into a kidnap plot, heads the FilMart slate of Hong Kong-based sales agency Autumn Sun Company. The protagonist is a man who spent 20 years in jail after being falsely accused of rape. After his release, he intends to confront the woman, but instead falls for her again — to the point that she is able to manipulate him into kidnapping the child for which she is the nanny.