The title of this film, while being hard to remember, is also a bit of a misnomer. There isn’t just one betrayal, there are many—husband to wife, man to country, father to son, nation to nation. The film itself is a feat of 23 years of work by cinematographer and director Ellen Kuras and the film’s primary subject Thavisouk Phrasavath (known as Thavi).

During Q&A, Kuras revealed that her early interests in anthropology and Laos led her to Thavi. She became so intrigued by his family’s story that she began filming them. Her work on the project led her to her renowned career as a director of photography, but it remained unfinished as years passed. She didn’t say it explicitly, but it sounds like Cara Mertes, one-time maven of POV and now director of the Sundance Documentary program had a hand in moving the project toward completion for its Sundance 08 premiere.

As you can imagine, it is beautifully shot and covers a lot of territory, both geographically and in time. During the Vietnam era, the United States led silent wars in Laos and Cambodia. As the title credits tell us, we dropped more munitions on Laos than we did in WWI and WWII combined. The impact was to destabilize the government, making way for a despotic regime and wrecking havoc on the lives of average citizens.

Thavi’s father had, unfortunately, assisted the US military in determining targets within Laos, believing that he was helping promote a positive future for his country, but making him a traitor in the eyes of his countrymen. He also believed falsely that the US would take care of him as one of our own when we pulled out of Laos, which didn’t happen. After he was hauled off to prison and presumed killed, his wife and eleven children and had to flee the country, fearing their own fate.

As is probably always the case, this refugee/exile situation caused innumerable problems for these people. From having to leave two daughters behind, Thavi being separated from his family for years and living as a street kid, and then finally making it to the US only to be dumped in a crack house by a corrupt immigration sponsor. Things don’t get better for the family when 13 years later, they discover that the father had not be killed, but instead had been living in Thailand and taken a new wife, and had moved to Florida with his new family.

This story reminds of others such as The Flute Player and New Year Baby, both of which explore the lives of families from Cambodia, where the US involvement lead to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, leaving families fighting to survive and unprepared for rebuilding their lives in the US. Thavi’s story is sadly not unique. The strength of Nerakhoon is its stunning filmmaking (co-directed and edited by Thavi himself) and the fact that 23 years have allowed their story to unfold. We aren’t watching the family recall their story, we see it unfold through the eyes of Kuras and Phrasavath—a truly unique view.

indieWIRE interview with Kuras

POV Photo Slideshow from the premiere screening in Park City