The first feature length documentary of STERNTAUCHER Filmproduktion is a personal project, that accompanied director Marina Kem for many years. The film was made over a period of 14 years with numerous supporters from all over the world, among them the Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and Kuratorium junger deutscher Film. Overall we shot for three months, of which four weeks took place in Cambodia. The main shooting was between 2011-2013. During the shooting period our crew had to overcome cultural and, above all, climatic differences. The coldest shooting day was in the German winter of January 2011 in -26 degrees Celsius. Only few weeks earlier they were sweating in 42 degrees in the sticky and warm Cambodia.

The life of Ottara Kem was closely related to current events, therefore, the research for historical footage was at the core of the work: 117 potential sources, professional archives and private contacts were searched for suitable material. From about 10.000 film clips and photos we selected around 800 for the editing.

An overview of the numbers:

  160     hours of originally shot footage
    30     interviews, 16 in Khmer and 14 in German
    18     protagonists
    10     hours of footage from archives
 1200    photographs and documents scanned and edited
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  100     minutes of cinema documentary BONNE NUIT PAPA