FestivalPhnomPenh 1997 FotoCatalogue

And the Beat Goes On…

From 1996 to Beat Richners death in 2018, Filmmaker Gachot has filmed the growing of the 5 Children’s Hospital of the Swiss pediatrician in Cambodia.
Gachot met Dr. Beat Richner also known with his artist name Beatocello in Phnom Penh in 1996. The filmmaker was commissioned by a Swiss music label to record a CD in a pagoda with Richner’s playing Bach suites on his Cello. The CD should promote and help to collect money for Richner’s children’s hospitals Kantha Bopha in Cambodia. Richner and his project fascinated the filmmaker right away followed Richner achievement until his death in September 2018. They spoke on the phone almost every day. Richner called Gachot, Steven, like Steven Spielberg, making fun of him, and Gachot called him Pablo, like Pablo Casals, the famous Spanish cellist. During this 25 years, Gachot could realised five films about his unique humanitarian achievement in the country of the Khmer. Today in 2024, the five Kantha Bopha hospitals of Dr. Beat Richner continue totr treat 80% of the sick Cambodian children.