LITTLE GEMS

| 2017 – 108′ – Documentary, Family 14+.
Written by: Xavier de Lauzanne.
Directed by: Xavier de Lauzanne.
Official Competition COLCOA 2017 (Winner Best Documentary Award).
In French with English subtitles.
A France Channel release. |

This uplifting documentary celebrates the humanitarian work of a humble French couple that dedicated their retirement years to bettering the lives of Cambodia’s garbage-dump children. Christian and Marie-France des Pallières are an unlikely pair of heroes. In the 1990s, they came upon an apocalyptic scene of ragged children trawling through a heaving landscape of junk, filth, and toxic waste trying to scavenge anything of value. These latter day ragpickers, some as young as four, exist on the edge of Cambodian society, with no access to education, medicine, or even decent food. Many of them were sold by their parents, abused, raped.  The couple settled in Cambodia, determined to make a difference in the lives of these “gems.”. Christian, a jovial man of aristocratic heritage, was soon spending his days at the dump, building shelters, and, most importantly, a school. Over the next two decades their foundation, PSE (For a Child’s Smile), would result in salvaging thousands from a bleak future.

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