Sometimes, We Have to Go Back Home

Feature Documentary film, in post-production

✨ The Story

Three sisters — Chorvy, LinDa, and Srey — grew up thousands of miles from Cambodia, the country they fled as children after the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime. For them, Cambodia was never just a place on a map. It was memory wrapped in the smell of their mother’s cooking, in the rhythms of Khmer language spoken at the dinner table, and in stories.

Now adults, they travel together to Cambodia for the first time in 43 years. They’ll visit the family home, walk the streets they once knew, and listen to stories long buried. Along the way, they’ll discover that home is more than geography; it’s memory, connection, and the bond they share as sisters.

What unfolds is a portrait of sisterhood in motion: laughter and arguments, tears and tenderness, and the grace that comes from finding your place in the world, even if it’s not where you thought it would be.

✨ A Story of Sisterhood and Belonging

We seldom see Southeast Asian women at the heart of intimate, joyful, and complex stories. This isn’t a history lesson or a trauma-only narrative—it’s a coming-of-age story, just unfolding a little later in life. Through the eyes of three sisters, we step into the vibrant, everyday spaces of Cambodian women’s lives: kitchen talk over a cooking lesson, laughter in a beauty parlor, wise words from a kruu teav (divination master) at Wat Phnom, and quiet reflection at the pagoda during a water purification ceremony. These are the moments that rarely make it to the screen—ordinary yet extraordinary, and entirely our own.

For anyone who’s lived between cultures, between generations, or between languages, this is your story too. In a time when displacement and diaspora continue to shape lives, Sometimes, We Have to Go Back Home reminds us that returning doesn’t always mean going back. Sometimes, it means moving forward together.

✨ Why This Film Matters

Millions of people live “in between”—between cultures, generations, and languages, never fully belonging to one place or the other. This film is for them. It’s for the sisters, daughters, mothers, and aunties who quietly carry untold stories, hoping one day to pass them on.

For LinDa, this journey was more than a trip; it was a promise. She wanted her sisters to see the Cambodia that shaped her, to help her older sister find peace in returning home, and her younger sister feel the pull of her roots. But most of all, she longed to weave their three lives back together. What began as a dream inspired by road trip movies became a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for healing. With your support, this story can reach screens, hearts, and communities around the world, starting with the ones who need it most.

✨Meet the Team – Co-directors

About LinDa: “This isn’t just a film—it’s my family’s story. It’s about my sisters and me, the home we left behind, and the pieces of ourselves we’ve carried ever since. Though it’s rooted in my own history, Samnang was deeply moved by this project because it speaks to something universal—sisterhood, the pull of an old home, and the courage it takes to go back. We’ve known each other for years, and I trust her to hold this story with the same care and respect I do. Together, we’re shaping these memories into a film that honors where we come from and the bond that’s carried us through.” LinDa

LinDa Saphan, a Fulbright Scholar, is an urban anthropologist and a prominent voice in Cambodian cultural studies. She has published extensively on Cambodia’s early popular music. LinDa served as the lead researcher and associate producer for the documentary film Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll, and has acted as executive producer for several other film projects.

She is the author of A Few Acres of Snow a novella published by Kampu Mera, Faded Reels: The Art of Four Cambodian Filmmakers 1960-1975, published by the Royal University of Phnom Penh in 2022, and Remnant of the Past: A Filmography of Cambodian Early Cinema in 2024. Since 2013, LinDa has been a professor of sociology, and in 2025, she became the Assistant Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Mount Saint Vincent, NYC.

About Samnang:“This project speaks to me in ways I can’t count. I, too, once left Cambodia, only to return and find it waiting, unchanged in spirit, as if I had never gone. This film is more than the journey of three sisters; it’s the pulse of coming home, the tender shock of loving a place anew. It is my love letter to Cambodia, to Phnom Penh, to the home that has always lived in me.” Samnang

PenhSamnang KAN, a co-director for the film, is a seasoned filmmaker and educator with a passion for storytelling that connects Cambodia and its diaspora. A lecturer in documentary film at DMC RUPP in Cambodia, she brings a wealth of hands-on experience, including her early career as an assistant film director and film archivist at DC-Cam.

From 2015 to 2020, while pursuing her Master’s degrees at UMass Boston in the USA, she worked as a graduate researcher and digital storytelling director on projects focused on the American community. Her academic background in Transnational Cultural Studies and Global Inclusion offers a unique lens for the project, enabling her to navigate the complex themes of memory, identity, and return with a profound sense of empathy and cultural understanding. The film is a continuation of her work to bring nuanced Cambodian stories to a global audience.