Sundance. Nerakhoon (The Betrayal).

"The wounds inflicted by the US military's covert Vietnam-era operations in Laos still run deep, as evidenced by The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), which details one Lao family's harrowing efforts to start a new life in America," writes Scott Foundas in Variety. "More than two decades in the making, this heartfelt debut docu feature by veteran cinematographer Ellen Kuras brings an affecting personal dimension to a sprawling sociopolitical narrative, intimately detailing how the agendas designed to advance the interests of nations can destroy individual lives."

"Even by the standards of independent documentaries, Ellen Kuras's Nerakhoon is the ne plus ultra of ultra-marathons," writes David D'Arcy in Screen Daily. "Kuras shoots the American Dream for one family as a collection of cases of survival and compromise, shifting from scenes of war, the stark sequences of Brooklyn squalor, to the Americanization of the younger generation.... Nerakhoon is a powerful work of anthropology. That should not be a reason to avoid seeing it."

"Thoroughly different in tone from the considerably more arch and self-conscious [The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins], Nerakhoon is another deeply personal story about the way nationality and a sense of place shape identity and how their lack can be distorting," writes Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times.

"POV correspondent Kris Wilton spent the day with cinematographer-turned-documentary-director Ellen Kuras at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday, January 20."

IndieWIRE interviews Kuras; so does Sadia Latifi for New York's Vulture.

Online viewing tip. Zoom In Online's "Meet the Artists" video with Kuras and Phrasavath.

Posted by dwhudson at January 30, 2008 1:26 PM