Episode 15: The Plastic House with Allison Chhorn
In this episode, we feature a conversation with Allison Chhorn about her film THE PLASTIC HOUSE (2020). THE PLASTIC HOUSE is a highly immersive film that occurs almost entirely inside and around her Cambodian family’s dilapidated greenhouse in South Australia. Economical yet expansive, Chhorn filters and displaces her fears about her parent’s deaths and a precarious future onto an intensely moving narrative of ritual, physical labor, and isolation.
Also referenced in this podcast is Chhorn’s Carte Blanche from Visions du Reel, which you can view here.
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ALLISON CHHORN
Born in Adelaide, Australia, to Cambodian migrant parents, Allison Chhorn holds an Honours Degree in Visual Arts from UniSA. As a filmmaker and multi-disciplinary artist incorporating video, installation, photography, painting, and music composition, Chhorn’s work explores themes of migrant displacement, trauma, and the repetition of memory through screens of visual media. In 2015, Chhorn co-founded the Port Film Co-op, collaborating as producer/ editor of the feature films Stanley’s Mouth (2015) and Youth on the March (2017) and directing numerous short films.
Chhorn’s film work has been screened at the Adelaide Film Festival, OzAsia Festival, FELTspace, SASA Gallery, and the North Bellarine Film Festival. “The Plastic House” is her first solo mid-length film.