00:03Hello everyone, today I feel like changing things up a bit.
00:08This time I'm going to tell you a story I wrote, entitled
00:13The ghost of my father.
00:15It's a true story with a touch of fiction, of course, but a compelling story.
00:21through memory, absence, and silences.
00:25So, let's go.
00:27I often stood by my bedroom window, watching Paris live without
00:33Me.
00:34Autumn leaves swirled in the wind, passersby continued on their way,
00:40The city shone with a thousand movements, and yet, inside me, everything seemed frozen.
00:47I'd always had this emptiness inside me, an old, silent, painful emptiness, like
00:55an absence that had never truly allowed me to breathe.
00:58I was born in Phnom Penh, in the terror of the Cambodian genocide.
01:03My mother took me to France to save me, to offer us a life far from the horror.
01:09But one never truly leaves a land marked by pain.
01:13We carry our wounds, our silences, our secrets with us.
01:18And I grew up with my father's absence like one grows up with a scar
01:22invisible.
01:24I never knew him, but he has always lived within me.
01:28I could hear it in the words of others.
01:30I heard it in the stories of her bravery, her beauty, her strength.
01:35He was there, without being there.
01:38A presence that is both tender and painful.
01:41That's strange, isn't it?
01:43The more time passed, the more his absence became palpable.
01:47I thought I saw his face everywhere.
01:50In the reflections, in the dark corners, where shadows passed furtively,
01:56in some dreams so real that they left my heart heavy when I woke up.
02:02Sometimes I felt like I could hear him calling me from afar,
02:06as if a part of him was still trying to reach me.
02:10And deep down, I think I was waiting for it.
02:15Always.
02:17Then one day, a letter arrived.
02:20An invitation to return to Cambodia for a ceremony in memory of the victims of the genocide.
02:27When I read those words, something inside me trembled.
02:31I realized that this trip was not a coincidence.
02:34It was an encounter with my past, with my roots, perhaps even with him.
02:41From the moment I arrived in Cambodia, I felt my heart begin to break in a different way.
02:46as if the earth recognized my footsteps,
02:49as if something had been waiting for me there all these years.
02:53At the ceremony, I felt such a strong presence that it overwhelmed me.
03:00I saw this man, or perhaps his spirit,
03:03And everything inside me knew it even before he spoke.
03:07When he revealed his name to me, Riti,
03:10I felt my tears rising and I couldn't hold them back.
03:14He was no longer just an imagined father.
03:17It was no longer a vague absence.
03:20It was becoming real.
03:21Finally, through this encounter, I discovered much more than just an image.
03:27I discovered a man with his wounds,
03:30his struggles, his fears, and also his greatness.
03:34A man who had loved, resisted, suffered.
03:37A man who had borne on his shoulders the weight of an impossible era.
03:43And the more I got to know him,
03:45The more I felt something healing itself, slowly,
03:49painfully, deeply.
03:51I also understood that the visions I had had all these years
03:54were not the product of my imagination.
03:57They were perhaps the only way her soul had found to speak to me.
04:02to guide me to him, to our story.
04:05And this truth overwhelmed me.
04:08because it gave meaning to my sense of lack,
04:10a meaning to my pain
04:12a meaning to this love for a man I had never held in my arms,
04:17but which my heart recognized nonetheless.
04:19So I no longer wanted to remain silent.
04:22I no longer wanted this story to be ignored.
04:24I wanted to speak for him, for my family,
04:27for all those whom violence had erased,
04:30without ever truly making them disappear.
04:33Organizing this exhibition has become much more than just a project.
04:37It was an inner necessity.
04:40A way of giving the dead their rightful place.
04:43A way to give hope back to the silence that had built me up.
04:49For days, I gathered photos, objects, and testimonies.
04:54And each of these stories pierced me like a blade.
04:59I came away from it shaken, exhausted, but even more determined.
05:05On the evening of the exhibition, I had a lump in my throat.
05:09I was afraid I would collapse.
05:11I'm afraid my voice will tremble.
05:13Fear of not being able to live up to everything I was wearing.
05:17But when I started talking about my father,
05:20of his absence, of his soul, of his legacy,
05:23Something inside me has been set free.
05:26I wasn't just talking about him anymore.
05:28I was talking about all of us.
05:30Of our invisible wounds.
05:32Of our unfinished mourning.
05:34From this memory that we sometimes try to bury in order to survive,
05:38but who always ends up demanding his place.
05:41And in their eyes, in their tears,
05:44in the silences of the audience,
05:46I felt that something was flowing between us.
05:49A shared pain.
05:51But also a form of reparation.
05:54That evening, I understood that telling stories,
05:57It was already a little bit of healing.
05:59How to put words to the inexpressible,
06:01It was refusing to let oblivion prevail.
06:03Even in the midst of the darkest tragedies,
06:06A fragile, but tenacious peace still exists.
06:10A peace that passes from heart to heart.
06:12After that, my story began to touch other people.
06:16The testimonies have multiplied.
06:19Voices were raised.
06:20And I, who had felt incomplete for so long,
06:23uprooted, almost a stranger to myself,
06:26I started to find my place again.
06:29Not just as the daughter of a survivor.
06:31Not just as a child of a broken history.
06:34But as a woman capable of transforming her pain into a living memory.
06:39Even today, I carry my father within me.
06:42Not like a ghost that haunts me,
06:45but like a presence that soothes and guides me.
06:47His absence still hurts me sometimes.
06:51Some wounds never truly disappear.
06:55But they are changing.
06:57They become a gentle force.
06:59An inner loyalty.
07:01A silent promise.
07:04I now know that I will continue to speak.
07:07to pass on, to bear witness.
07:09Because love survives absence.
07:12Because memory is a form of remembering.
07:14Because even broken souls can learn to shine.
07:18And deep down inside, there is this promise
07:21which I still do for him every day,
07:23in the secret of my heart.
07:25I will never forget you.
07:27I will keep your name alive.
07:28I will walk with you.
07:30as long as I have breath left.
07:33Next story.
07:35Beyond the trenches.
08:05Subtitling by Radio-Canada
08:25Subtitling by Radio-Canada
08:57The ghost of my father
09:08The stars shattered in the night
09:12Like his dreams, like his hopes
09:16Every tear that falls tells a fragment of her story.
09:23What are you, whispering in the silence?
09:27What has time hidden?
09:30I am the echo of his presence, a soul in search of truth.
09:37Oh, the ghost of my father
09:41The ghost of my father
09:43Tell me in the light
09:45Tell me in the light
09:46For remembrance and prayer
09:49And prayer
09:50I'm searching for my mystery
09:54Deep down, my father
09:56In spirit and in work
09:58With talent and a chorus
10:00To hear my father
10:02It's by my side
10:04I had a wine
10:09And when the shadows dissipate
10:13I will feel calm in mine
10:17Dreams and my dreams intertwine
10:21In a world where love is that
10:24Oh, the ghost of my father
10:29The ghost of my father
10:31Tell me in the light
10:32Tell me in the light
10:34For remembrance and prayer
10:36And prayer
10:37I'm searching for my mystery
10:41In spirit and in work
10:45And the work
10:47The spirit and the work
10:48The ghost of my father
10:50It's by my side
10:52We'll never
11:01In my heart
11:04Your memory is clear
11:08I will carry you proudly and sincerely
11:12Never
11:13Oh, my father
11:22Oh, eh, eh
11:26Hey, hey
11:28Ooh
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