Stories That Carry Culture
Producing human-centered documentaries that explore culture, memory, and identity through the lives of the people who embody them.
THE BARANG STORY
For filmmaker Chris G. Parkhurst, stories almost always begin with people.
Barang Films is an independent documentary production company that creates human-centered documentaries exploring culture, memory, and identity through the lives of those who embody them. The name comes from Cambodia — in Khmer, barang means foreigner or outsider, a word Parkhurst first encountered while filming Bombhunters in rural Cambodia in 2004. When he later founded Barang Films, the name felt like an honest reflection of the documentary filmmaker's perspective: arriving curious, understanding through listening.
The company's films have traveled across cultures and continents. Journey to Kathmandu follows a Nepalese family through Dashain, Nepal's most important religious festival. Fumi's Floral Shoppe portraits a 95-year-old Japanese-American florist whose life spans craft, resilience, and the shadow of wartime internment. And Elvis of Cambodia: The Legacy of Sinn Sisamouth, created over nearly a decade, reveals a legendary singer's enduring legacy through the voices of those who carry his music and memory — reflecting a nation's cultural survival after the Khmer Rouge era.
Parkhurst is also host of The Documentary Life, a podcast exploring how documentary filmmakers sustain meaningful creative lives.
With deep roots in Cambodia and an ongoing connection to Southeast Asia, Barang Films continues to seek stories where the personal and the cultural meet — because cultures endure not through institutions, but through people.
Barang Films — Stories That Carry Culture
