Cambodia based RUIN wins award in Venice

RUIN by Michael Cody, Amiel Courtin-Wilson has been premiered at the prestigious 70th Venice Film Festival in the section HORIZON (Orrizonti) and has been awarded the Special Jury Prize.

Australia, 90′
language: Khmer, English – s/t English, Italian
Actors: Rous Muni, Siek Somalen

Synopsis :
An impressionistic fable of trauma and love, Ruin is the story of Phirun and Sovanna—two lonely young Cambodians living amongst brutal surrounds—their isolated worlds gradually entwined through premonitions of vast bodies of water. Inexplicably drawn together and silently united on the streets of Phnom Penh, Phirun and Sovanna find refuge in one another until a sudden and brutal murder committed in self defence forces them to flee the city and travel deep into the jungle. As their vulnerable love ebbs and flows along their journey, they gradually open up to one another and find a profound intimacy that sits somewhere between platonic love and sexual desire. Unable to hold onto the impermanent peace and love cocooning them, they wake from the trauma of their former lives and unleash a violent rage upon the world. Love and death intermingle as they travel deeper into the abyss—the amorphous world strangely transforming around the two young lovers on the run.

Directors’ Statement :
The more perfect a thing, the more it feels pleasure and pain (Dante).
The heart of our approach to Ruin is a methodology in which research, writing, shooting and editing are able to coalesce and occur simultaneously. Utilizing the emotional immediacy of non actors and the chaos of real locations we then instil this energy with the broader themes of an impressionistic, fictional narrative. Ruin is the lush and brutal story of two lovers who conjure the untold depths of each others traumatic inner lives. The surfacing of this emotional magma unleashes a potent transformative love as well as a torrent of chaos that ultimately threatens to destroy them.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE