Documentary Filmmaker Focuses on Cambodia’s Martial Art

Bokator is an ancient Cambodian martial art that flourished during the golden age of Angkor, and almost disappeared under the Khmer Rouge. Canadian filmmakers Mark Bochsler and Sandra Leuba met Khmer Rouge survivor and Bokator grandmaster, Sean Kim San, while visiting Cambodia in the spring of 2010. After hearing of his dream to revive bokator, their film on the fighter and his sport premiered in 2017 and is being screened at film festivals in Cambodia, Canada and the United States. The film’s team dropped by the Voice of America (VOA) in Washington to talk with VOA Khmer’s Chetra Chap about the making of “Surviving Bokator” and the place of bokator in Cambodian culture and today’s Cambodia.