A film about choices and changes

friendship and family

Cambodia and America

about facing the past

and forging a future:

THREADS: KOSAL’S REEL

Pre-Release Screening:  Thurs., Nov. 13, 2025, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
For details about the screening and more information about the film, please see this flyer.

Synopsis

In Threads: Kosal’s Reel, the moving life story of Kosal Nhean, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide, is interwoven with that of her volunteer English teacher (Shanee), a Jewish American woman from the Boston area, who first met Kosal when the latter was a newly arrived refugee in San Francisco in 1986. Kosal later relocated to southern California, where she raised her four children as a single parent while working two jobs —  one at a donut-shop counter, the other as a seamstress. Using vivid footage shot in Cambodia and California over the course of more than two decades, and supported by a riveting historical backdrop of archival footage, the relationship of these two women, which began as pupil and teacher when both were in their early 20s, grows into a remarkable lifelong friendship. Resonances between Kosal’s experience and that of Shanee’s grandmother, Gittel, who fled pogroms in Ukraine during the early 1920s to find refuge in Hartford, Connecticut, make it clear that across differences of culture and context, it is possible to build a bridge and be moved by each other’s stories.

In a de facto challenge to implicit stereotypes about a woman who earns a low wage and speaks English with a Cambodian accent, the many layers of Kosal’s experience are gradually revealed: the ordeals she endured in the four-year genocide; saving the lives of several others through ingenuity and daring; her narrow escape, on foot, to a refugee camp, while carrying her newborn daughter in her arms; the hardships she and her family faced during their six years in a Thai refugee camp; and, in 1985, at long last, their arrival in the United States. Through shots of Kosal’s day-to-day life in California, viewers come to appreciate the enormous challenges she has overcome in providing an education and solid values for her 4 children in a low-income urban neighborhood in which pressures to join gangs, drop out of high school, and abuse drugs are ubiquitous. There are shots of and interviews with various members of Kosal’s family. These include her ex-husband, whom the Khmer Rouge had forced Kosal to marry on pain of death and who abandoned her and their 4 children shortly after their arrival in the US, and their eldest son, who served in the US army during the war in Iraq.

When Kosal’s father, a widely revered Buddhist monk, age 95, is on his deathbed, Kosal finally overcomes her fears of returning to Cambodia, and, after more than a 20-year absence, travels back to the Buddhist temple he heads, taking along her 17-year-old daughter, Saroeutrh Kayla, a vibrant, sensitive young woman who was born in the refugee camp and is now thoroughly Americanized, yet intensely eager to learn about her heritage. At the temple, Kosal reunites with her beloved, long-lost sister Kim Sat (a Buddhist nun who is an extraordinary woman in her own right), and finally learns the fate of their four brothers.

Although in some ways specific to the Cambodian American experience, Threads: Kosal’s Reel touches upon wider, archetypal themes that are relevant not only for refugees and immigrants, but for all human beings who seek wholeness, and who strive to preserve meaningful ties with family and friends, and to repair those connections that have been severed by historical and political events. The film’s title – along with the imagery and motif of sewing – evokes the effort to gather together the threads of one’s life, and to pick up the pieces one has lost along the way. The title also alludes to the continuing bonds between the dead and the living, and our ancestors and descendants.

The film is currently in post-production, and funding is urgently needed to cover the costs of bringing the final version to fruition. A pre-release screening is scheduled to take place on Thursday afternoon, November 13, 2025, at Yale University.

Historical Background

Cambodia is a small country in Southeast Asia that shares borders with Thailand and Vietnam. In the 1970’s, strengthened by widespread discontent with the US-backed, corruption-ridden Lon Nol regime and by the population’s anti-Western sentiment, which had followed the U.S. government’s secret, illegal campaign of bombing the Cambodian countryside, a militant Communist party called the Khmer Rouge (Red Khmer) succeeded in recruiting more and more people to its cause, and gained control over the entire country.  On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge, headed by Pol Pot, took over Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.

Within two weeks of coming to power, they forced the entire population of the capital and provincial towns to evacuate to the countryside and become slave laborers.  They vowed to destroy all vestiges of the previous society.  All contact with the outside world was eliminated.  Ownership of private property was abolished.  Use of money was forbidden.  Buddhism and all religion were banned.  Monks and nuns were slaughtered.  Everyone was required to wear only black clothes to show loyalty to the peasant class.  All schools were closed.  People were killed for wearing glasses or for knowing a foreign language, because these were viewed as signs of being educated.

The Khmer Rouge demanded absolute obedience, and killed anyone who disagreed with them.  During their reign of three years eight months, more than 2 million people – one-third of Cambodia’s population – died as a result of their policies of mass murder, slave labor, and starvation.  This catastrophic period is widely referred to as the Cambodian genocide.

On Dec. 25, 1978, the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Pol Pot government.  The Khmer Rouge fled to the jungles and mountains near the Thai border.  Civil war continued for the next twenty years.  Hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled to refugee camps in Thailand; of these, more than 150,000 were eventually resettled in the United States.

Pol Pot died in 1998, while hiding in the jungle.  By the end of 1998, almost all the remaining Khmer Rouge guerillas turned themselves over to government forces in return for amnesty, and the Khmer Rouge ceased to exist.  In 1999, Cambodia was finally at peace for the first time in more than 30 years.

For the thousands of Cambodians who had come to the United States as refugees, the establishment of peace meant that for the first time since fleeing the Khmer Rouge, they could begin to think about going back to Cambodia—to search for answers about what had happened during that time, to reconnect with loved ones who had remained behind, and to try to come to terms with their losses.

BIOS OF CREW MEMBERS

Shanee Stepakoff: Director, Producer. Born and raised in the Boston area, Shanee holds a BA in English, summa cum laude, from the University of Maine, an MFA in creative writing from The New School (2009), and is nearing completion of a PhD in English at the University of Rhode Island. Shanee is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and is the author of Testimony: Found Poems from the Special Court for Sierra Leone (Bucknell University Press, 2021), the first-place winner in the poetry category from the Independent Book Publishers Association, and of over two dozen scholarly essays, articles, and chapters, primarily on literary and artistic responses to collective trauma. She has won several awards for her writing in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Shanee is also a practicing clinical psychologist. She spent two years working with CVT (Center for Victims of Torture), first in Guinea and later in Jordan. From 2005 to 2007 she was the psychologist for witnesses at the UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone. In 2006 she provided training and consultation for Cambodian organizations responsible for psychosocial support for witnesses in the newly-established Khmer Rouge tribunal. Shanee’s vision for Threads: Kosal’s Reel began crystallizing in early 1986, shortly after she graduated from college in Worcester Massachusetts and moved to San Francisco, where she volunteered as an English-as-a-second language teacher for Cambodian refugee women and encountered the film’s subject, Kosal Nhean. This is her first film.

Tiffany Cunningham: Co-Producer, Editor. Dr. Cunningham earned a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1989, with a double-major in history and environmental studies. She later earned a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her previous filmmaking experience includes work as an editorial assistant, historical researcher, production assistant and audio-lineup assistant for the feature-length documentary, A Double Life, by the eminent filmmaker Catherine Masud. Dr. Cunningham has worked closely with Shanee (the director) over the past four years. She has reviewed over a hundred hours of footage and hundreds of still photos spanning half a century to decide which ones to include. She has scrutinized hundreds of pages of interview transcripts as well as transcriptions of dialogue and remarks made during shoots, to pull the most captivating audio components which she matched with corresponding visuals to help bring the film to fruition. She has closely supervised the Khmer-English translators and added the subtitles for the Khmer translations. She recruited and continues to closely supervise three archival researchers to ensure that the archival footage serves the larger needs of the film. Dr. Cunningham also has extensive experience as a genealogical researcher, which she has utilized to integrate themes of ancestry and family history (both Kosal’s and Shanee’s) into Threads: Kosal’s Reel.

Alrick Brown: Associate Director, Associate Producer, Lead Cinematographer, Artistic Advisor. Mr. Brown is a tenured Associate Professor of Undergraduate Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. An award winning writer and director, he graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English and a Masters of Education before completing his MFA in filmmaking from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The many sources that inform Alrick’s creative expression include: the historical and contemporary realities of racism in the United States, interactions with villagers during a two-year tour with the Peace Corps in Côte d’Ivoire, his early childhood in Kingston, Jamaica, and his migration to and upbringing in Plainfield, New Jersey. Alrick is widely respected for his commitment to social, political, and economic justice and to revealing the heart of the world through the craft of storytelling. His cinematic reach includes credits on the small screen as director, producer and writer on a variety of projects – ABC’s Final Witness, ESPN’s short doc series, Spike Lee’s Lil’ Joint, and Investigative Discoveries Emmy-Award winning series A Crime To Remember, among others. Alrick’s films have screened in over thirty film festivals, nationally and internationally, and have received several awards. Among them is the HBO Life Through Your Lens Emerging Filmmaker Award for the critically acclaimed documentary Death of Two Sons. He received the Director’s Cut Award for best short film, and won 1st place in Allstate’s “Be Reel” commercial competition at the American Black Film Festival in Los Angeles. Three of his films have played at Lincoln Center. Alrick’s first feature film, Kinyarwanda, was the recipient of the prestigious Sundance World Cinema Audience Award. Before joining the faculty of NYU, Alrick taught at Rutgers University, The Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and at Goddard College, where he was a faculty advisor for the Interdisciplinary Arts MFA program. He was one of four NYU students featured in the hit IFC Documentary series “Film School”. Alrick co-directed four shoots for Threads: Kosal’s Reel: California Oct 2005; California June 2006; Boston, Massachusetts Sept 2006; and Cambodia August 2006. He wrote interview questions and conducted interviews with key figures in the film. He has provided crucial artistic advice for the past two decades.

Catherine Masud: Consulting Producer, Editorial Consultant. Catherine is an award-winning filmmaker and educator, with 30 years of production experience in documentary and fiction films. Much of that time has been spent working internationally in challenging environments, most especially Bangladesh. As a producer/director/writer/editor, her work has won awards in Cannes and other international festivals and competed in the Oscars. Since 2015 she has been based full time in Connecticut, where she has continued her professional work as a filmmaker while engaging in teaching, lecturing, and advocacy. She continues to embrace projects that address the pressing conflicts of our times while also recognizing the common humanity that binds and defines us. Notable awards include: Audience Favorite Award, Mill Valley Film Festival (A Double Life), 2023; Best Long Format Documentary, Kathmandu Folk Film Festival (Muktir Gaan), 2016; Nominee & Finalist, Vera List Prize of New School for Social Research, 2014; Copeland Fellow, Artist-in-Residence at Amherst College, 2013; Outstanding American Alumni Award, American Alumni Assoc Dhaka, 2013; Ekushey Award, Chief Guest, Film South Asia (Kathmandu), 2011; and Best Film, Meril-Prothom Alo Awards (Runway) 2010. Catherine holds an MFA in film from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She obtained her undergraduate degree in development economics from Brown University. With regard to Threads: Kosal’s Reel, Catherine provided essential guidance before and after the 2001 first shoot in Cambodia. She has kept the film footage and platforms compatible over the span of more than two decades and has made crucial contributions to the storyline. In addition, she co-directed the Hartford Connecticut shoot in 1994 and the Highland California shoot in 2018. She has served as an advisor to the Bangladesh National Film Archives and the National Film and Television Institute, and is a founding member of the South Asian Children’s Cinema Forum, a regional body for the promotion of children’s cinema. Since the untimely death of her husband (the internationally renowned filmmaker Tareque Masud) in August 2011, Catherine has worked tirelessly to archive and preserve his work, and to complete their unfinished oeuvre.

Lawrence ‘Apu’ Rosario: Cinematographer for Cambodia 2001 shoot. Mr. Rosario is a Bangladeshi cinematographer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his higher secondary education at Notre Dame College, Dhaka, in 1990. He later studied motion picture photography at the Film and Television Institute of India, in Pune. His cinematography credits include: Matrity (2004); Khelaghor (2006); Durottwo (2004); Amar Bondhu Rashed (2011); Nekabborer Mohaprovan (2014); Anil Bagchir Ekdin (2015); We (2018); and Ural (2020). Mr. Rosario received the BACHSAS Award and the National Film Award for Best Cinematographer in 2011 (both for Amar Bondhu Rashed). He also received the FFTG Award for Best Cinematographer in 2020 (We).

Micah Schaffer: Co-Cinematographer, Sound Recordist. Micah is a filmmaker, writer, and educator whose work focuses on forging unexpected connections between people and finding humanity in unforeseen places. After studying history and anthropology at Stanford University, Micah worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea, West Africa. Micah’s first feature documentary, Death of Two Sons, was awarded the HBO “Life Through Your Lens” Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award and was distributed through Netflix. Micah was the cinematographer on “Shadows of a Leader: Qaddafi’s Female Bodyguards”, an official selection at the Montreal World Film Festival. He was the co-producer for “Iron Ladies of Liberia”, a PBS/BBC documentary about Africa’s first female president. Micah holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a post-graduate fellowship from NYU’s Cinema Research Institute, where he studied innovative co-productions and cross-border financing for independent film. He is currently teaching video production and African history at the Trevor Day School in Manhattan.

Sophy Theam: Lead Khmer-English Translator. Ms. Theam arrived in the United States in 1984 as a child refugee from Cambodia, and grew up in Bristol, CT. In 1999 she earned her BA from Boston College, with a major in Psychology and a minor in International Relations. In the years after she graduated, she was employed by the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell; the Khmer Youth and Family Center of Lynn, Massachusetts; Southeast Asian Bilingual Advocates; and the USDA Farm Service Agency in Westford, Massachusetts. In addition to her professional work as a Khmer-English translator, Ms Theam is a Learning and Development Manager, Vice President, of Enterprise Bank, headquartered in Lowell. She is also a Trustee and Clerk for the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation, which reviews funding proposals by non-profits that serve the residents of Greater Lowell. Her further professional activities include work as an Incorporator for the Lowell General Hospital, a Commissioner for the Massachusetts Asian American Commission, and service on the Lowell Community Health Center’s Capital Campaign committee. Ms. Theam has assisted in translation for Threads: Kosal’s Reel for over nearly twenty years. In addition to providing her own translations, she has rigorously checked and, when necessary, corrected the work of the four other translators.