6 Mar - Having made a name for itself as one of the biggest film festivals in Cambodia, the Cambodia International Film Festival (CIFF) is returning for its 9th edition this March. This year, the annual film festival will take place from 9 to 14 March 2019, across nine venues around Phnom Penh. Malaysia will be represented at CIFF 2019 by three titles in different segments of the film festival. James Lee's 2018 action thriller "Kill-Fist" has been selected for screening under the International Feature Films segment. "Kill-Fist" follows a middle-aged man struggling with a dead end job who is in the midst of divorcing his wife and losing custody of his daughter, and on top of all this, has to take care of his Alzheimer's-ridden father. When he gets invited to an underground fighting game, he becomes hooked on the fights and is determined to reach the final round. Meanwhile, Amanda Nell Eu's 2017 horror drama "It's Easier to Raise Cattle" (or "Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu") will be screened under Short Films - Colourful World. It tells of two teenage outcasts who befriend each other and one of them discovers the other's dark secret. The third title is Sim Seow Khee's 2018 short "Black Hole Monster", to be screened under the International Shorts segment, which follows a boy who captures every moment on camera as he walks along the river after school.
CIFF 2019 will present a selection of over 120 films from 37 countries including international feature films, short films, documentaries, and animations. As usual, tickets will be provided on a first come, first served basis one hour before each screening, with last-minute tickets priced at USD1.25. Some of the other prominent pictures to screen at this year's CIFF include Angelina Jolie's "First They Killed My Father" (2017), Caylee So and Sok Visal's "In The Life of Music" (2018), Denis Do's "Funan" (2018), Rithy Panh's "The Missing Picture" (2013) and "Graves Without a Name" (2018), Jimmy Henderson's "The Prey" (2018) and Peter Farrelly's Oscar-winning feature "Green Book" (2018). There will also be special highlight sections for the Philippine and Swedish cinema, and a retrospective glance at the fall of the Khmer Rouge Regime forty years ago.