New film highlights Cambodian family's triumph despite living in a landfill

New film highlights Cambodian family's triumph despite living in a landfill


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SALT LAKE CITY -- Two BYU film graduates have been nominated for an International Documentary Association award for their film, "River of Victory." Trevor Wright and A. Todd Smith would tell you they didn't make the film to win awards, but rather tell the story of a family living in filth and finding happiness along the way.

Smith and Wright served as missionaries for The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cambodia and then later returned to the country as humanitarian workers for the Cambodian Children's Fund. While there the two could hardly believe the living conditions of some families.

Wright, Smith and a handful of other BYU film students decided to make a film following the executive director of the Cambodian Children's Fund, Scott Neeson. When that original plan fell through the students were determined to tell this story and found another way to make the film work.

"We found this family and started filming them," Wright said. "It turned out to be way more meaningful and better than we ever have planned."

The family they decided to follow consisted of Sang Ly, her husband, Ki; their 3-year-old daughter, Keo; and 18- month-old son, Sokchea. Sang Ly, Ki and their children live in a dump, literally. The small family is surrounded by a land fill that houses 11 acres of trash, 100 feet deep in an area called, Steung Meanchey, which roughly translates to "river of victory."

While living at a dump site is not ideal, it provides a unique opportunity for the family as pick through the trash for recyclables. While the recyclables provide an income for the family, it has also affected the health of their son Sokchea.

"I feel bad for my son," Sang Ly says in the film. "Not that I don't have other problems. You could write a book about them, but the only sentence that I would care about is my sick son."

Sang Ly's love and sacrifice for her family is a common trait in the "river of victory," and the filmmakers hope that is the message viewers take away from their film.

"We want to tell the story that these are regular people and they are real people and they care about their families," Wright explained. "While the dump is a pretty shocking thing in and of itself, we wanted the people to come across more than just the condition they are living in."

Read more on the film "River of Victory" and Sang Ly and Ki's family here from the Deseret News.

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Caresa Alexander

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