The paper focuses on Rithy Panh, a Cambodian documentary filmmaker now living in France as an exile, and explores his career as a filmmaker that started after his arrival in France in the 80s. It situates the place of Asian immigrants on the diverse map of France’s history of immigration and analyzes the place that Cambodia has had and continues to have in France and more specifically French film production and distribution. It covers R. Panh’s films from the early Les Gens des Rizières to the most recent one, ‘S-21, la machine de mort khmère.’ A discussion of the financing and critical reception of Panh’s films sheds a light on contemporary film production practices and critical reception in Europe and the West. Shifting back and forth between documentary and fiction, Panh who is now considered an ‘auteur’ has firmly established his career in the hexagon and abroad while maintaining a strong connection with his country of birth. He manages to bridge both countries, traveling back and forth between them with his cameras, training teams of cinematographers in Cambodia, informing French spectators of the traumas experienced by his people. Panh has been viewed as filming ‘the soul of people’ and ultimately uses film as a medium to survive and resist his own past.