Rithy PANH
KP
"If animals were in power, would they base their behavior on humans? Would they practice excessive, unfettered consumption to the point of destroying their environment? Would they adopt human flaws? Would they have the same thirst for power;the same cruelty?
Would they choose to govern through demagoguery, terror, or totalitarianism? What would images mean? Art and cinema,or surveillance and questionable doings?Would they get along with the ¡°ancients¡±- meaning the humans, or would theyenslave them?Would they have the desire and strength to resist evil tendencies and inclinations? Would they have empathy for their fellow creatures and all the living beings with whom they share the planet?"
Everything will be OK is an essay film that weaves the traces of Rithy Panh, who dealt with the memories of political oppression and fear through various visual media formats such as archive films and clay animations. This political fable takes place in a dystopian world dominated by animals, where the leader wild boar, apes, bears, and lions revolutionize, dominate, and enslave humans just as humans did before. And animals see a variety of images previously created by humans, including Méliès and Vertov's films, footage of war and genocide, and one of the most recent photos, a protester in Myanmar who was killed wearing with a T-shirt that read ¡°Everything Will Be OK¡±. The tragic images that are constantly presented in frame-in-frame and split screens in the film sharply suggest that it is the time to break away from such foolish repetition and make a new history. Following 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) and Planet of the Apes(2001), it is the most interesting and elegant example of cinematic reflection on the Anthropocene and civilization.
Rithy PANH
Born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In 2013, his film The Missing Picture was the first Cambodian film nominated for an Oscar, for best foreign language film. His latest film Irradiated received the award for best documentary at the Berlinale 2020,