World’s longest red carpet to unroll at CamboFest, Cambodia Film Festival (March 1-9)

The world’s longest red carpet, measuring 26.5 kilometers, will unroll at the upcoming CamboFest Cambodia Film Festival (March 1-9, www.cambofest.com), linking the French colonial venue town of Kampot with the seaside coastal town of Kep.

Jan 29, 2011 – The world’s longest red carpet, measuring 26.5 kilometers, will unroll at the upcoming CamboFest Cambodia Film Festival (March 1-9, http://www.cambofest.com),linking the French colonial venue town of Kampot with the seaside coastal town of Kep while shattering existing records for a red carpet event.

The lengthy carpet, donated by the Zhejiang Da Guanyuan carpet company of Zhejiang Province, China, is currently on its way to the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville, to then be transported by road in time for the festival.

“This long carpet is a symbol of regional friendship’ said Zhejiang Carpet Company owner Jiang Jiansheng at a recent Phnom Penh press conference. ‘It’s a grand scale and powerful enterprise which has possessed many high technical manpower who are specialized in the designs of all kind of hand-woven, weaving art and wall-to-wall carpets.’

CamboFest founder and co-organizer Jason Rosette welcomes the carpet, but has expressed concerns about the festival’s ability to handle the rug while housing and feeding the 35 person crew who will be involved in its installation.

‘The carpet is monumental, and we welcome any support for our grass roots, indie festival here in the developing world’ said Rosette. ‘And of course, at more than twenty six kilometers, it beats the world record hands-down.’

He added, ‘After the event, the rug can be cut into sections and donated to schools and homes and any other folks who can use it here in Cambodia’.

‘But what we really need is a decent large venue projector that our youth group can operate for this year’s event, running March first through the ninth’, Rosette conceded.

‘Funding has been extremely limited this year, with the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, the Arts Network Asia, UNESCO, the Jan Vrijman Fund, the Asia Foundation, and others turning us down for funding.

Rosette estimates that funders this year may still be nervous due to attacks on the CamboFest Film Festival at the 3rd edition in 2009 by Phnom Penh based foreign movie pirates. (*see http://cameradomoviesandmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/cambo ...)

Such interference, though not the fault of the festival itself, may nonetheless leave donor and funding agencies reluctant to sustain any further perceived risk in the Cambodian environment, despite the value of the CamboFest mission.

Rosette added that this year the Deutsche Welle DW-AKADEMIE has, however, invited CamboFest co-organizer Phun Sokunthearith to a film festival training workshop in Berlin, highlighting a proactive, courageous leadership role that development agencies might assume in atypical, and sometimes hazardous, developing world media environments.

Despite the lack of funding, hardware, venues, and skilled festival staff in Cambodia (with most of the country’s artists being killed off during the Khmer Rouge regime) other exciting developments –besides the red carpet – are unrolling at this year’s CamboFest Cambodian film event.

A Cambodian youth group, Youth Association for Human Resource Development (YAHRD) will be trained to operate many of the festival’s functions to ensure the event’s future sustainability, while CamboFest staff will again revive the once-majestic ‘Royal’ cinema house, which was destroyed during the civil war and subsequent Khmer Rouge regime, as a venue for this year’s festival event.

‘We hope that many guests and movie buffs will come to take a walk on the magnificent, world-record breaking red carpet supplied by our supporters at the Zhejiang Carpet Company’, said Rosette.

‘But, we sure could use additional financial support to feed our staff, to buy fuel for the generator, to pay for housing for any visiting filmmakers, and to upgrade our projector to a better large venue model’, he added.

And then, truly, the red carpet can be unrolled!

The CamboFest, Cambodia Film Festival runs from March 1-9in the colonial coastal town of Kampot, Cambodia.

Visit the CamboFest website ( http://www.cambofest.com ) to download a sponsorship proposal or to send any inquiries.

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CAMBOFEST, Cambodia Film Festival was established in 2007; find out more at http://www.cambofest.com