Ma Rynet

Following her mother’s death, manga artist Soriya travels to her ancestral home in Phnom Penh, with hopes of reconnecting with her distant family and using the visit as inspiration for her work. All goes well initially. Renting an apartment in Metta, a rundown Khmer Rouge-era housing complex, her visit to her maternal relatives finds her welcomed with open arms. But Soriya’s waking hours in the apartment and its surroundings are punctuated by terrifying, bloody visions, almost as though she were a conduit for horrors of the past wanting to seep into the present.

A robotics company vying to win a lucrative military contract team up with a corrupt CIA agent to conduct an illegal live field test. They deploy four weaponized prototype robots into a suspected drug manufacturing camp in the Golden Triangle, assuming they'd be killing drug runners that no one would miss. Six doctors on a humanitarian mission witness the brutal slaughter and become prime targets.

Soul River was part of the Mekong 2030 anthology, which presents five short films from five Southeast Asian directors, including Kulikar Sotho to represent Cambodia and Hanuman Films. Shooting took place in the Ramsar Wetlands and Stung Treng on the Mekong River as well as on the Tonle Sap Lake near Siem Reap.

A lost film, buried beneath Cambodia's killing fields, reveals different versions of the truth. A contemporary story about love, family and the ghosts of Cambodia's past.