“What happens to people, morals and ethics when alcohol and capitalism are unleashed on a poor, corrupt country with few restrictions?” The question is part of a summary Cambodian beer dreamsDocumentary film by Lauritz Nansen (Welcome to the front line, Emily Meng – The investigation that went wrong,
The city where children disappear) which will have its world premiere at the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival CPH:DOX on March 12.
The film, which is being screened in the F:act Prize section of the Danish festival, the 23rd edition of which will take place from March 11 to 22, takes us into a mysterious territory unknown to much of the world.
In Cambodia, major international and local brewers are struggling to win the war for the country’s fast-growing beer market. The question of whether the end justifies the means does not seem to be their focus. “Through aggressive marketing, young ‘beer girls’, and promises of cash prizes, poor residents are encouraged to drink more and more alcohol – sometimes to the point of death,” the summary highlights.
in Cambodian beer dreamsfollows Nansen Kim Eng, the lone activist standing up to the beer industry and “neocolonial alcohol capitalism” in his fight for a national alcohol law. After all, the country has no legal drinking age, and only a few guidelines that are rarely enforced. This has contributed to a five-fold increase in alcohol consumption in Cambodia over the past two decades, according to press notes Cambodian beer girls.
“What surprised me most was the sheer scale of the beer industry’s marketing efforts. When I first arrived in Phnom Penh, the city was completely covered in beer advertising,” says Nansen in a statement to the director. “There were cash prizes on cans of beer, young women were employed as beer girls, and the beer industry gained enormous influence on everything from popular culture to politics.
International breweries, such as Carlsberg and Heineken, have led this type of marketing for many years, and it is striking that some of the tactics they use in Cambodia would be completely unacceptable if applied in Europe under their own codes of conduct.
But his interest is in making Cambodian beer dreams It also originated from Personal experience. “When I was young, my father died after several years of alcohol abuse, and like many Danes and Europeans, I saw how alcohol can destroy a person and have devastating consequences for those close to him,” he says. “At the same time, we live in a culture where alcohol plays such a dominant role that it is almost invisible.”
Diving into Cambodia’s alcohol growth market allowed the director to see its dark sides at play. “It presented an opportunity to explore what happens to people, morals and ethics when alcohol and capitalism are unleashed like two wild animals,” says Nansen.
THR The first trailer can now be viewed exclusively for Cambodian beer girlsproduced by Malin Flindt Pedersen of Hansen & Pedersen and Signe Skov Thomsen. It takes us from dreams, such as promises of money, success and life as a party, to nightmares such as wandering hands and threatening telephones. Get your first experience of the documentary Cambodian beer girls less.
