When Rithy Panh was announced as the surprise jury president for the 78th Locarno Film Festival, it was more than just a programming decision—it was a symbolic nod to cinema’s enduring ability to bear witness, provoke, and reflect.

Panh, who escaped the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia before discovering film in France, has spent decades chronicling both personal and national trauma through groundbreaking works like The Missing Picture, Exile, and Graves Without a Name. His 2013 Cannes-winning film The Missing Picture introduced his now-iconic aesthetic by blending clay figurines, archival footage, and voiceover to reconstruct memories that history tried to erase.

This year, Locarno hailed him as “one of contemporary cinema’s most courageous and consistent defenders of artistic freedom and an indefatigable champion of the power of historical truth.” Artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro added: “His passionate search for truth, his anti-dogmatic approach, and his genuine commitment… make him an authoritative witness of our time.”

But in conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Panh showed little interest in cinematic grandeur. Instead, he offered a thoughtful meditation on creativity, judgment, memory and the limits of what cinema can actually do.

On What’s Next and Why He’s Picking Up a Super 8 Camera

Though Panh says he’s not actively shooting a new film, he is reading, researching, and revisiting old project ideas. “Maybe looking back at the list of ideas to see what idea is now possible to work on,” he said. He’s also curating a photography exhibition for November and revising the latest edition of his co-authored book The Elimination.

But perhaps his most surprising creative impulse right now? A return to analogue.

“I want to go back to Super 8. As a very young filmmaker, I made a Super 8 movie. And I want to go back… I would like to find again my first love or maybe the same sensation. I would like to find something more innocent, more elegant, more poetic.”

That return to tactile, physical filmmaking comes with cost and constraint. “It’s very expensive – 100 euros ($118) for [a film roll of] three minutes,” Panh said. “But it’s interesting because… you need to think a little bit.”

On Freedom, Genre, and the Mislabel of ‘Documentary Filmmaker’

Long known for blending fact and fiction, history and metaphor, Panh rejects rigid genre labels. The Missing Picture, for instance, was nominated in the Best International Feature category at the Oscars, not documentary.

“People used to call me the guy who makes documentaries. But it’s not really true… I am not thinking too much about whether something is fiction, documentary or more. It’s just my vision of the images and how to tell a story with images.”

Panh is deeply interested in narrative experimentation, but he’s wary of social media’s influence on storytelling.

“Now, people make films [or series] for social networks that are three minutes [long], exactly the time between two stations on the subway… It’s cinema influencers and not cinema.”

He believes true cinema needs space—for thought, for emotion, and for physical presence. “A close-up must be a close-up on the big screen. It’s not the same on your TV screen.”

On His Role as Locarno Jury President—and Why It’s Terrifying

As he steps into the role of jury president, Panh confesses to feeling uneasy about judging art.

“I’m a little bit afraid of festivals… I don’t want to say this one is better than that one. I’d create a prize for everyone… It’s so hard to make a film.”

For Panh, cinema is deeply subjective, and judging across cultures, languages, and styles can be daunting. “We have a few people on the jury, and maybe someone will have to explain the story of a film to me. And if one film comes from another continent, how can I fully understand all of it?”

But he believes the strongest films transcend those barriers.

“The strongest films are universal. You can understand because you fear something. There is this humanity, dignity, freedom.”

On Cinema’s Role in Healing—and Its Limitations

A consistent theme in Panh’s work is trauma—how it’s remembered, processed, and sometimes silenced. But while he believes cinema can create space for collective reflection, he is realistic about its power.

“Can cinema repair the world or can it save the world? No, we cannot save the world. We need to save ourselves.”

Still, he argues that cinema can help us breathe amid the noise and chaos of modern life.

“Cinema also brings you a moment to breathe, happiness, you can dream, you can love… We need space. We need to watch and hear. We need physical sensation.”

The rise of AI, however, threatens those fragile spaces. “There are fakes with AI, so artists will need to be very cautious about where and how we research.”

On Teaching, the Next Generation, and Saint Chris Marker

Panh is also a teacher now, and he finds as much inspiration in his students as in his idols.

“Now, how people produce, how the new generation does things is different… And at the same time, I like teaching my students with classic films, because they discover things. The idea is that we can be free with cinema, and we can bring people with us.”

Among the filmmakers who shaped him, Panh points to Andrei Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Bergman, Kieślowski—and most intimately, Chris Marker.

“When I have difficulty with shooting or editing, I think: ‘Hi, Chris, can you help me?’… I never met him, but he is very strong for me, like a saint of cinema. Saint Marker.”

A Final Reflection

Even as he reflects on past trauma and contemplates the future of the art form, Rithy Panh isn’t nostalgic—he’s searching. For truth, for freedom, for innocence. Whether through digital experimentation or Super 8 nostalgia, his work continues to ask the same, essential question: How do we see—and what do we do with what we’ve seen?

“Images and sound are very complex… But also, images can become more and more banal.”

In Panh’s hands, they rarely are.

Above interview is from The Hollywood Reporter.

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