AllMovie

Close to two million Cambodians lost their lives when Pol Pot came to power in 1975 and set out on a bloody purge of what he considered bourgeois influences, a campaign that came to be known as the Khmer Rouge. Thet Sambath was one of many Cambodians who lost loved ones in the massacre -- his father and brother were executed, and his mother, after being forced to marry a Khmer soldier, died giving birth to his child. But unlike many, he's struggled to come to terms with the past by obsessively documenting the crimes of Pot and his henchmen, sometimes at the expense of the security of himself and his family. Filmmaker Rob Lemkin collaborated with Sambath on Enemies of the People, a documentary that chronicles Sambath's obsessive search and features a number of the interviews he's conducted over the years. Along with on-camera interviews with a pair of Khmer soldiers who discuss the ugly details of their crimes and the guilt they feel, Enemies of the People includes a rare conversation with Pol Pot's second in command, conducted days before he was arrested for crimes against humanity. Enemies of the People received its American premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.