Until the Orchid Blooms

Neang, an Indigenous woman in northeastern Cambodia, watches her village disappear beneath a hydroelectric dam. As industrial and state forces pressure families to leave ancestral lands, she struggles to hold her community together while her children’s futures drift away from traditional ways of life. 

Polen Ly: ‘The experience of filming Until the Orchid Blooms over six years went beyond filmmaking; it became a journey that allowed me to form a deep emotional bond with Neang’s family and her Indigenous community.

This story of struggle may seem small and unnoticed like a fallen leaf hidden in a vast forest, yet for me it reflects how our humanity confronts the crises of the modern world, where abuses of power produce both loud and silent forms of violence that harm human lives and nature itself.

I dedicate Until the Orchid Blooms as a diary for the family and the Kbal Tomas community, especially for the children, so they may remember the resistance, strength and resilience of their parents and elders. I also hope the film creates a spiritual bond between the audiences and the people whose stories it carries.’