First They Killed My Father

The second youngest of seven children born to upper-middle-class parents in Phnom Penh, Loung leaves her comfortable life behind when the Khmer Rouge army storms the city in April 1975. As she flees with her family to the countryside in an old pickup truck with only a small suitcase each, gone are the days of afternoon dance parties, breezy balconies and long, lazy lunches. Concealing their bourgeois roots and her father's past as a high-ranking official, they eventually settle in a labour camp, where luxury now means secretly roasting crickets under the cover of night. (Toronto International Film Festival)