Nominated for seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Directing), The Killing Fields is an intelligent and brutal exploration of loyalty and friendship set during the Khmer Rouge’s horrific 1970s Cambodian holocaust. Brilliantly scripted by Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I), the film is based on the true story of the relationship between Sidney Schanberg (Sam Waterston), a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times correspondent, and Dith Pran (Haing S Ngor), the Cambodian aide who remains behind following the evacuation of Cambodian citizens by the US army. Initially sending Schanberg news flashes, Pran is subsequently captured by the Khmer Rouge and subjected to the atrocities of the barbarous ‘re-education camps’. A startling feature debut from director Roland Joffé, The Killing Fields graphically articulates the carnage and absurdity of war (cinematographer Chris Menges’ stunning work won him an Oscar) offering an apocalyptic vision of the fields where innocent people were massacred en masse. The film also has political conviction, questioning American involvement and implicating the Nixon led administration in Pol Pot’s genocidal policies. Winning two other Academy Awards for Jim Clark’s visceral editing and Ngor’s astonishing central performance, an outstanding supporting cast includes John Malkovich, Julian Sands and Spalding Gray.

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