Description

20-year-old Samnang and two of his friends live in the White Building, a landmark tenement in Phnom Penh. In this fast-changing city, the three boys practice their dance routine dreaming of television talent contests while their parents lead a more traditional lifestyle. But the White Building is to be demolished. Samnang observes his father unsuccessfully attempting to bring together his divided neighbors on the government’s compensation offers for residents to move out, and he must face his best friend’s departure from Cambodia. Samnang finds that the stable environment he has always called home is on shaky ground.

Reviews

Highly recommended!
“The movie seems lived-in; its virtually tactile details and its trenchantly analytical dialogue feel like intimate aspects of the filmmaker’s audiovisual, emotional,
and intellectual experience.” —Richard Brody, New Yorker

“[White Building’s] sense of place is so palpable you can almost smell the smoky city markets, the sweat, the hormones.”—New York Times

“For all its hip-hop dreams, White Building soars along on quiet moments thanks to Douglas Seok’s stunning cinematography.” —Spectrum Culture

“A strong fiction feature debut for Neang … White Building understands the plight of an increasingly modern world that is constantly leaving its most vulnerable denizens behind.” —In Review Online

“Contemplative and full of longing … White Building serves not only as the filmic record of lives from the not-so-distant past but also reflects upon youth and their resilience and optimism in the face of change.”—Screen Anarchy

“Intimate and visually arresting.”
—ScreenDaily

“Gorgeously colored… impressive debut, the film inspires faith that Neang could eventually become an articulate local storyteller — a poet of lives caught in history — like its co-producer Jia Zhangke is for mainland China.”
—Cineuropa

“Similar in spirit to the cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.”
—International Cinephile Society

Festivals

Venice Film Festival _ Horizons, Best actor award
Chicago Film Festival
Busan International Film Festival
Pingyao International Film Festival
El Gouna Film Festival
Singapore Int’l Film Festival
BFI London Film Festival
Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Tokyo FilmEx
Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival