Vanished producers hope to spur a resurgence in local filmmaking

The teenagers packed into the cinema at Sorya on a weekday afternoon are so loud and excitable I think maybe they’ve had too much Coca-Cola.

As the tension rises just a few minutes into the film and the first shocking moment is revealed, audience members jump out of their seats and scream their collective heads off.

The film that has everybody queuing up to be frightened is Vanished, a modern-day thriller set in Phnom Penh.

British producer Matthew Robinson and his team at Khmer Mekong Films (KMF) have raised the bar for local film productions with this new effort, producing a stylish, contemporary film that keeps the audience guessing right to the end.

Not for KMF the familiar regional style of filmmaking, with its over-the-top use of video effects and hard-to-follow supernatural storylines; Robinson’s aim in creating Vanished was to “present Cambodia in a modern light; to make a contemporary film about Cambodians and wrap it up in a thriller”.