Books we used while shooting and cutting Enemies of the People.
Two indispensable books are:
Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Politics, Race & Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge 1975-1979. Yale 1996.
David Chandler, Brother Number One: a Political Biography of Pol Pot,Westview 1999
The background on America’s responsibility in the Killing Fields see:
William Shawcross. Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia. New York 1979
Sydney Schanberg, The Killing Fields: the Facts Behind the Film. London 1984.
There is a large and powerful literature of survivor memoirs. The ones we referred to the most were:
Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, My Son. Silkworm 2000
Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father. Harper Collins 2000
For anyone wanting even more detail we recommend:
Steve Heder, Cambodian Communism and Vietnamese Model Vol 1. White Lotus 2004
Karl Jackson (ed), Cambodia 1975-1978: Rendezvous with Death. Princeton 1989
Craig Etcheson, The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea. Westview 1987
Sambath’s own account can be found in:
Gina Chon and Sambath Thet, Behind the Killing Fields. Pennsylvania 2010
