Cambodian Beer Dreams
A hard-hitting documentary about Cambodia’s unregulated drinking culture, corruption fuelled by beer companies and the dreams sold by a culture of alcohol consumption.
There are no alcohol laws in Cambodia despite a wild party culture featuring large-scale public competitions. The everyday marketing, both direct and subliminal, into the minds of young people, is inescapable at every corner. The multinational Carlsberg Group can afford to play dirty, sweeping competitors under the rug and exploiting its employees in brutal ways. Local actors want a piece of the pie, too, targeting even younger partiers as potential customers with drastic tactics. Activist Kim Eng is trying to lobby for a national alcohol law but experiences only steps backwards.
Through the Southeast Asian perspective, this intense documentary film grapples with the impacts of alcohol culture and beer companies’ control of the entertainment industry, the effects of corruption on society’s regression and neocolonial capitalism and the dreams it sells.
The documentary exists both in the halls of power, as well as in large street parties, drifting in the glow of neon-lit advertising signs colouring streets. On the more humorous side, we see clips from the reality show The Voice of Cambodia, which is sponsored by a beer company. How do we fight against corrupt beer giants when they have bottomless budgets to alter peoples’ desires to the point where cases of the beverages are openly donated to administrations and police forces alike?
Paavo Ihalainen (translated by Tara Tuchyner)
Screenings
-
Kino Engel 1Sat 19.9. at 21.00–22.2282 min, 1/3
-
Maxim 1Thu 24.9. at 18.30–19.5282 min, 2/3
-
Kino TöölöSat 26.9. at 12.00–13.2282 min, 3/3