Film Festivals

Top 20 Alternative Picks for Cannes 2013: Rithy Panh’s The Missing Image

Published on May 15, 2013

The Missing Image – Rithy Panh

Section: Un Certain Regard

Buzz: Cambodian director Rithy Panh, perhaps best known for his 2003 documentary, S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine or a 2008 Isabelle Huppert film, The Sea Wall, unveils this intriguing hybrid documentary/Claymation feature in Un Certain Regard, and it has already been compared to the likes of Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir. Luckily, Panh’s latest has already received distribution deals through Paris based Film Distribution (FD) ahead of its world premiere, which bodes well for a project that may very well introduce Panh to a wider audience.

The Gist: In The Missing Image, Franco-Cambodian Panh pieces together his adolescence in a Khmer Rouge labour camp, through archives and reenactments using small clay figurines, in the work.

Related Topics:2013 Cannes Film Festival, Rithy Panh, The Missing Image

Nicholas Bell

Los Angeles based Nicholas Bell is IONCINEMA.com's Chief Film Critic and covers film festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Cannes and TIFF. He is part of the critic groups on Rotten Tomatoes, The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and GALECA. His top 3 for 2021: France (Bruno Dumont), Passing (Rebecca Hall) and Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro). He was a jury member at the 2019 Cleveland International Film Festival.