{"id":503394,"date":"2026-02-27T16:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503394\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:29:09","slug":"cambodian-beer-dreams-doc-trailer-for-cphdox-copenhagen-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/503394\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cambodian Beer Dreams’ Doc Trailer for CPH:DOX Copenhagen Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cWhat happens to people, ethics, and morals when alcohol and capitalism are unleashed in a poor and corrupt country with few restrictions?\u201d The question is part of a synopsis for Cambodian Beer Dreams, a documentary by Laurits Nansen (Welcome to the Frontline, Emilie Meng \u2013 An Investigation Gone Wrong,
The Town Where Children Disappear) that will world premiere at the\u00a0Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival<\/a> CPH:DOX<\/a> on March 12. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe film, screening in the F:act Award section<\/a> of the Danish fest, whose\u00a023rd edition<\/a> takes place March 11-22, takes us into shady territory unknown to much of the world. <\/p>\n

In Cambodia, large international<\/a> and local brewers are battling to win the war for the country\u2019s rapidly growing beer market. And the question of whether the end justifies the means doesn\u2019t seem to be in focus for them. \u201cThrough aggressive marketing, young \u2018beer girls\u2019 and promises of cash prizes, the poor population is encouraged to drink more and more alcohol \u2013 sometimes to the point of death,\u201d highlights the synopsis. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn Cambodian Beer Dreams, Nansen follows Kim Eng, a lone activist who stands up to the beer industry and \u201cneo-colonial alcohol capitalism\u201d in his fight for a national alcohol law. After all, the country has no legal drinking age and only a few, rarely enforced directives.\u00a0This has contributed to alcohol consumption in Cambodia increasing fivefold over the past two decades, according to press notes for Cambodian Beer Girls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Cambodian Beer Dreams\u2019 <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Laurits Nansen<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat surprised me most was the sheer scale of the beer industry\u2019s marketing efforts. When I first arrived in Phnom Penh, the city was completely covered in beer advertisements,\u201d Nansen says in a director\u2019s statement.\u00a0\u201cThere\u00a0were\u00a0cash prizes on beer cans, young women were hired as beer girls, and the beer industry had gained enormous influence over everything from popular culture to politics.\u00a0\u00a0
International breweries, such as Carlsberg and Heineken, have led this type of marketing for many years, and it is striking that some of the methods they use in Cambodia would be entirely unacceptable if applied in Europe under their own codes of conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut his interest in making Cambodian Beer Dreams also arose from personal experience. \u201cWhen I was young, my father died after several years of alcohol abuse, and like many Danes and Europeans, I have seen how alcohol can destroy a person and have devastating consequences for those close to them,\u201d he shares. \u201cAt the same time, we live in a culture where alcohol plays such a dominant role that it almost becomes invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDiving into the alcohol growth market that is Cambodia allowed the filmmaker to see its dark sides at play. \u201cIt presented an opportunity to explore what happens to people, ethics, and morality when alcohol and capitalism are unleashed like two wild animals,\u201d says Nansen.<\/p>\n

\n\tTHR can now exclusively premiere the trailer for Cambodian Beer Girls, produced by Malene Flindt Pedersen of Hansen & Pedersen and Signe Skov Thomsen. It takes us from the dreams, such as promises of money, success and life as a party, to the nightmares, such as wandering hands and phone threats. Get a first taste of the documentary Cambodian Beer Girls below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat happens to people, ethics, and morals when alcohol and capitalism are unleashed in a poor and corrupt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,200933,75,77,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-503394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cphdox","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}