This documentary tells a classic story of gentrification: an inner-city housing estate demolished to make way for a luxury development; ordinary people being priced out of the city. The city here is Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where in 2017 a modernist housing block known affectionately as the White Building was pulled down. Director Kavich Neang’s family was among the nearly 500 to be evicted, and this film predates Neang’s fictionalised account of the same events.
In interviews, Neang has spoken about his embarrassment as a kid telling people that he lived in the White Building. It was home to artists, musicians and civil servants, but in later years became run down: it acquired a reputation for prostitution and drug-taking, and was downgraded to a slum.
