Actor, performance artist and playwright Spalding Gray here adapts his successful one-man show for the big screen. Seated behind a desk with little more than a map as a prop, Gray focuses on a small role he had in the 1984 film “The Killing Fields.” Discussing life on the set of that film, which follows a photojournalist in Cambodia covering the violent reign of the Khmer Rouge, Gray spins personal memories into a larger story about political unrest and turmoil in Southeast Asia. Gray pulls together genocide, pleasure-seeking, military paranoia, filmmaking, and even an anecdote about rude neighbors to paint a coherent portrait of aggression. Jonathan Demme’s SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA (83 mins) is both drama at its most entertaining — and an enlightening personal lesson in the history of America’s involvement in Cambodia during the Vietnam era.

FREE ENTRANCE!

Meta screens the best films set in Cambodia every Friday, 7.30PM. All films are screened in English language versions and / or with English subtitles.