kaun កូន (2020)

This short film imagines the voice of my grandmother speaking to my mother as they arrive in the United States after escaping the genocide in Cambodia. The project engages with family, memory, erasure, and resilience in the absence of a personal archive.

This short documentary was created for a filmmaking class on archive aesthetics, family narratives, and community storytelling at Yale University. Written, edited, and illustrated by Annelise Ratner. Interview filmed by Annelise Ratner. Archival images and clips from YouTube and personal archives.

This film was featured in the Yale School of Architecture’s “Speaking into Being: Beyond Asian Silence” exhibition, which was staged in 2021 following the increase in anti-Asian violence in America since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.