White Building

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White Building

Released May 19, 2023

1h 30m

Drama

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Popcornmeter

95%

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19 Reviews

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

20-year-old Samnang and two of his friends live in the White Building, a landmark tenement in Phnom Penh. In this fast-changing city, the three boys practice their dance routine dreaming of television talent contests while their parents lead a more traditional lifestyle. But the White Building is to be demolished. Samnang observes his father unsuccessfully attempting to bring together his divided neighbors on the government's compensation offers for residents to move out, and he must face his best friend's departure from Cambodia. Samnang finds that the stable environment he has always called home is on shaky ground.

Robert Abele

Los Angeles Times

...beautiful feature debut, an urban elegy about what’s thick in the air when the home one has always known is not long for the world.

Jun 15, 2023

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Richard Brody

The New Yorker

The movie seems lived-in; its virtually tactile details and its trenchantly analytical dialogue feel like intimate aspects of the filmmaker’s audiovisual, emotional, and intellectual experience.

May 21, 2023

Full Review

Austin Considine

New York Times

The film’s loose plotting and secondary character development can leave a few too many hanging threads, but its sense of place is so palpable you can almost smell the smoky city markets, the sweat, the hormones.

May 18, 2023

Full Review

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

The images give Neang’s cityscape a tinge of doomed romanticism.

Sep 21, 2023

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

...it’s a graceful first feature with a poetical sense of loss that lingers after the final credit crawl...

Sep 19, 2023

Full Review

Stephanie Bunbury

Deadline Hollywood Daily

Neang shows a remarkable confidence as a first-time feature director in conveying, through expertly timed silences and pauses, the tension seething below the smooth surface of things.

Sep 16, 2023

Full Review

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Neang Kavich

Director

Piseth Chhun

Samnang

Soem Chinnaro

Ah Kha

Tho Sovann

Tol

Jany Min

Kanha

Hout Sithorn

Samnang's Father

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Synopsis

20-year-old Samnang and two of his friends live in the White Building, a landmark tenement in Phnom Penh. In this fast-changing city, the three boys practice their dance routine dreaming of television talent contests while their parents lead a more traditional lifestyle. But the White Building is to be demolished. Samnang observes his father unsuccessfully attempting to bring together his divided neighbors on the government's compensation offers for residents to move out, and he must face his best friend's departure from Cambodia. Samnang finds that the stable environment he has always called home is on shaky ground.

Director: Neang Kavich
Producer: Davy Chou, Marine Arrighi de Casanova
Screenwriter: Neang Kavich, Daniel Mattes
Distributor: KimStim
Production Co: CNC Aide aux cinémas du monde - Institut Français, Anti-Archive, Doha Film Institute, Kongchak Pictures, Xstream Pictures, Apsara Films
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Khmer
Release Date (Theaters): May 19, 2023, Limited
Runtime: 1h 30m

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