Government officials and various artists have urged the conintued showing of films by former king Norodom Sihanouk, which he directed and produced prior to the fall of Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge and in the years after the regime's demise.
The appeal came after the Sihanouk issued a notice May 10 asking that his movies no longer be shown. He said recently some people showed his movies with the intention to criticize him.
Ministry of Information undersecretary Ea Pannasith, who is in charge of television affairs, said he still supported the former king's movies.
As a young prince and king, Sihanouk was renowned for his films, which he would screen at a guesthouse in Siem Reap, among other places. The films are capsules from Cambodia's heyday, when French influence and modern thought found purchase in a newly independent nation untroubled by war or genocide.