Brother Number One trailer

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Wed, 06 Jul 2011 6:04p.m.

Rob Hamill

Rob Hamill

Brother Number One follows Rob Hamill to Cambodia seeking justice for his brother, murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime in 1978.

The film is directed by Annie Goldson.

“An Island Calling and Punitive Damage, Annie Goldson’s best-known films until now, investigated violent political upheavals in Fiji and Timor respectively. In both she traced events alongside Kiwi protagonists determined to see justice done. Now she accompanies Rob Hamill to Cambodia,” says New Zealand Film Festival director Bill Gosden.

“Testifying against the avowedly repentant Dutch before a War Crimes Tribunal, Hamill mourns his brother and provides harrowing ‘victim testimony’, relating the damage wrought on his family. Nearly two million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Hamill and his Cambodian translator, who has her own tale to tell, struggle to understand their own losses within that mind-boggling statistic of cruelty and suffering”

Brother Number One is playing at the 2011 NZ International Film Festival.

Watch the trailer.

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Comments

23 Jul 2011 01:29p.m.

Rob Hamill wrote:

No survivor in Cambodia treated me with such disdain. As you will see in the film, Cambodians embraced me as a fellow victim -- when I voiced my anxieties about my "privilege" in being invited to speak, Youk Chhang, called by many "the conscience of Cambodia", reassured me staying: "When you have lost a loved one, you suffer in the same way". I contemplated all the issues you highlight and the decision to put my head above the pulpit was not taken lightly. Before I began working on this the awareness here in NZ of this terrible period of recent history was, at best, average. I hope this film will assist people to better understand what happened to the people of this beautiful country.

23 Jul 2011 01:20p.m.

Cleo wrote:

I think Chris and Louis are utterly wrong. In fact according to the Yale Genocide Centre statistical modelling (and yes I can see Chris you are a sniper at academics, an SAA, familiar breed), the numbers are likely to be higher than 2 million. Just because the Cambodians suffered hugely, and Rob has always acknowledged that and I feel from the trailer even that this is what motivated him too, it doesn't detract from the suffering he and his family underwent. If you think families "get over" the loss of a child or sibling regardless of circumstance, I imagine you live in a different planet to most of us. Then to find out that child/sibling has been tortured for months.

17 Jul 2011 01:48a.m.

Louis Godena wrote:

I concur with Chris' comment. The two million figure has been repeated so often, ad nauseum, that lazy journalists and opportunistic politicians utter it as a matter of rote. Also, didn't Kerry Hamil dabble as a small-time narcotics trafficker? His brother, unfortunately, contributes to the image of arrogant opportunist that many Cambodians have of westerners in general.

06 Jul 2011 07:37p.m.

chris wrote:

Quite strange really; I thought the issue was about Cambodia and its people, not some Kiwi who can not get over his loss of an adventurous brother who was in the wrong place. Travelling can be risky and unfortunately Kerry Hamil paid the price for unwittingly wandering into a war zone. In all honesty, I find Rob Hamil arrogant and attention seeking. Also, to state that "the Khmer Rouge killed nearly 2 million people" is speculation, not fact. One should read more on the issue before persuing what is known as the "Standard Total Academic View", (STV. for short).
Spare a thought for all the Cambodian people who were not able to express their grief at the ECCC. Mr R. Hamil would have been more appropriately seen and not heard at these tribunals, whilst speaking at them in such a self-important manner was simply an embarrassment.