Free Republic

Written by Jolie and Ung, First They Killed My Father is Cambodia’s official entry for this year’s Academy Awards Foreign Language Film race. Jolie, who has dual citizenship in America and Cambodia, was selected by the government to represent the Southeast Asian country — which is remarkable considering she is a Western woman. The Netflix film is about Cambodian author and human rights activist Ung’s life under the rule of the deadly Khmer Rouge, the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia. The film is the adaptation of Ung’s memoir about surviving the deadly...

It’s not as if Angelina Jolie hasn’t proved her worth as a writer-director before now. Following on from the Bosnian war drama "In the Land of Blood and Honey," and "Unbroken’s" harrowing account of life in a second World War prisoner-of-war camp, Jolie’s fourth narrative feature, confirms her as an exquisite craftswoman and an artist capable of tackling geopolitical complexities. "First They Killed My Father," the official Cambodian selection for the Academy Awards, is based on the memoir of the same name by Loung Ung, whom Jolie befriended in 2002 after the actor became a goodwill ambassador for the UN....