Sleepwalking Through the Mekong

by John Pirozzi

USA - 2007

Thursday, June 6th • 6PM
At Bophana Center

Documentary - 68mn

Color

English and Khmer with English subtitles

CinematographyJohn Pirozzi

Music Dengue Fever

GenreDocumentary

First raleaseMay 5, 2007 (USA)

ProductionFilm 101 Productions, M80 Records

SynopsisSleepwalking Through the Mekong follows Los Angeles based band Dengue Fever on their journey to Cambodia to perform 60s and 70s Cambodian rock n’ roll for the first time in the country where it was created and very nearly destroyed. The odyssey is a homecoming for singer Chhom Nimol and a transformation for the rest of the band as they perform with master musicians and record new songs along the way.

AboutMore than a rockumentary, the film serves up a portrait of modern Cambodia as the band tours through Phnom Penh and beyond, crossing a great cultural chasm with the same spirit of Cambodia’s original rock pioneers. Cambodia is often synonymous with the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that left millions dead and scattered refugees around the globe. This tragedy overshadows the story of Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Cambodian musicians reinvented Western rock n’ roll with a distinctly Khmer flavor to create a sound that is at once familiar and completely original. Sleepwalking Through the Mekong celebrates this vibrant but long-overlooked music and reveals the power of music to weave a common thread between extremely different cultures.
John Pirozzi has worked as a cinematographer for over 15 years. While directing in Cambodia the second unit photography on City of Ghosts by Matt Dilon in 2001, Pirozzi discovered a passion for Cambodian Rock and Roll from the 1960s and the 1970s. He is currently in post-production on Don’t Think I’ve forgotten : Cambodia’s lost rock and roll, a documentary about the history of Cambodian rock music. Pirozzi will show a previously unseen trailer of this film before Sleepwalking through the Mekong.

Selective filmography of John Pirozzi as a cinematographer:

2007 – Broken English

2004 – The Hillside Strangler

2004 - Late Watch

2004 - Mango Kiss

2004 – Z Channel : a magnificent obsession

With the courtesy ofJohn Pirozzi