This screening is co-presented with Alliance Française de Chicago’s Festival de la Francophonie 2026 and the National Cambodian Heritage Museum’s Day of Remembrance series. Join us for a post-screening conversation, then stay for a social reception featuring complimentary Cambodian tea. This screening is free; RSVP required.
Becoming Human
(ជាតិជាមនុស្សា )
A journalist and the guardian spirit of a soon-to-be-demolished theater share a friendship in this compassionate film about heritage and modernity
Date: Thursday, March 26
Time: 6:30 PM (Doors open at 6:00 PM)
Location: Alliance Française de Chicago (Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave.)
Cambodia | Fantasy Drama | 2025 | 99 minutes
In Khmer w/ English Subtitles
Director/Screenwriter: Polen Ly
Starring: Savorn Serak, Piseth Chhun
Film Source: Lights On
A journalist sneaks into an abandoned theater to say goodbye before its demolition. He encounters Thida, the guardian spirit of the theater. Though they forge a bond over conversations, Thida must choose between rebirth or remain a wandering ghost.
Polen Ly dissects his country’s dilemma between preservation and modernity in this insightful fantasy drama. Contemplating the importance of compassion and resilience in an everchanging world, the film is a meditative examination of fragility, time and memory, as well as the role they play in shaping our identities.
POLEN LY, DIRECTOR
Polen Ly is a self-taught filmmaker born in 1989 in rural Kandal province, Cambodia.
Polen’s artistic practice is rooted in social issues and nature, while his storytelling style is often expressed through different means of visualization and metaphors. In 2015, he was selected for the International Writing Residency of the University of Iowa (USA), and in 2018, he joined the Asian Film Academy in Busan, Korea.
He has also joined the Asiadoc program and the Story Lab at Docs by the Sea, both held in Indonesia.
He was a participant in the 2024 Locarno Filmmakers Academy. His recent short fiction, Further And Further Away, held its world premiere in Berlinale Shorts in 2022, and it went on to receive awards at Palm Springs, Singapore, and Toronto Reel Asian, among others.
His short documentary, Side by Side, won the Youth Jury Prize at Locarno Film Festival's Open Doors Screenings in 2021.
His full-length documentary film entitled Until The Orchid Blooms
premiered at IDFA and Singapore in 2024.
His debut feature film, Becoming Human, received support through the Biennale College Cinema program and premiered at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival. He also received the 2024 CAREC Fellowship from the Prince Claus Fund as he develops a new docufiction project, and he has served as a mentor for youth-focused film institutions in Cambodia like PSE School of Media and Sunflower Film Organization.
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