British filmmaker Andy Ball, the director of “The Clearing.” (Photo Supplied)
Andy Ball is a British documentary cinematographer and director with more than five years of experience in Cambodia, where he has focused on character-driven and investigative videos about human rights and environmental issues in Southeast Asia.
His latest work is “The Clearing,” which premiered one year after Cambodia jailed five activists from the award-winning environmentalist group Mother Nature for plotting against the government, after they had sounded the alarm about river pollution and land reclamation projects.
Ball spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about The Clearing, which follows Chandaravuth, the group’s most outspoken member, and his colleagues in the months leading up to their incarceration as they continued on a collision course with Cambodia’s rulers.
The Mother Nature environmentalists refused to buckle under pressure, and the severity of their sentences – up to eight years behind bars – shocked many people in Cambodia.
Environmental activists, NGOs, and human rights groups have urged the government to release them, noting the Phnom Penh Appeal Court has indefinitely postponed the activists’ appeal of the conviction.
“These activists should never have been imprisoned. These young men and women pose no threat to the Cambodian state,” the rights group Licadho said in a statement earlier this month.
Ball’s work has been published and broadcasted by Mongabay, BBC, CBS, New York Times, South China Morning Post, and Insider.