Social inequality is a familiar topic for people all over the world. Ivan Markovich (From tomorrow on, I will), a director and cinematographer born in Belgrade, Serbia, and living in Berlin, now takes us into the world of luxury homes and inequality in Cambodia in Promised spaces (Obćani prostori).
The film, Markovic’s first feature film, has its world premiere at ACID, the Cannes Film Festival sidebar run by the French Film Directors Association that aims to promote the theatrical distribution of independent films, on Saturday, May 16, followed by an “official screening” on Monday, May 18.
Promised spaces is a speculative fiction documentary, a co-production between France, Germany, Serbia and Cambodia, which explores urban speculation and the construction of luxury homes in Cambodia, as well as the meaning of home.
The cast includes Phulak Kung, Chia Loach, Vita Vuong, Lair Von, Thiara Orr and Kanitha Teth. Written, directed and edited by Ivan Marković and featuring sound design by Luka Parajevic, the film was produced by Bocalupo Films, in co-production with Fiskultura Films, Big Time Production and Anti-Archive. Luminalia handles international sales.
“Unable to sleep from the heat, Sokon leaves his crowded quarters and joins a community of fellow workers living in one of the many unfinished high-rise buildings,” the synopsis reads. “One of these towers provides a long-awaited luxury home for the first tenant, Seda, who soon feels trapped in the massive gated complex.”
The ACID website says about it Promised spaces: “A ghost town is rising in the middle of the Cambodian countryside. Gated communities, new buildings, suspended construction sites, and modern ruins form a space in constant flux, silently inhabited by construction workers, a wandering old man, housekeepers, gardeners, and secretaries. At night, the trees, the forest, the river, and stories of the past flourish…”
Or as Pauline Guinot, general delegate of ACID, says: “It shows us how urban landscapes are also political landscapes where class relations come into concrete form.”
Markovic, in a statement to the director, explains his inspiration this way: “Promised spaces Explores how architecture embodies social segregation, isolating people across class divides. By integrating fiction with real locations and non-actors, the film follows characters from different social classes – construction workers and residents of luxury gated communities – to show Cambodia’s rapidly expanding urban landscape. Through fragments of contradictory yet coexisting realities, he traces how speculative urban growth reshapes identities, communities, and notions of home.
THR An exclusive trailer for the film can now be viewed. Get ready to travel to Cambodia and dive into a world you may not know. A sneak peek gives you a first glimpse of the cinematic images, sounds and atmosphere that Markovich conjures. The former fishing village has become the site of modern buildings and construction.
Check out the view and of course the trailer for Promised spaces less.
