From remote Cambodian villages to the world of elite art collectors and galleries in New York and London, the new film “Loot: A Story of Crime & Redemption” documents the theft of artifacts known as “blood antiquities” from in and around the temple ruins of Angkor Wat and Koh Ker during Cambodia’s civil war.
Director Don Millar spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about a documentary that was three years in the making, after its screening at the 14th Cambodian International Film Festival in Phnom Penh.
He credits people like American lawyer Tess Davis for pursuing the thieves and galleries who acquired Khmer artifacts and takes a deep dive into the life of British “collector” Doug Latchford, who was wanted for looting and trafficking by the United States before he died in 2020.
Latchford, a muscleman who liked to be seen with the bodybuilders he oversaw as president of the Thailand Bodybuilding and Physique Sports Association, also took an intense dislike to anyone who challenged his motives.
“Loot” documents how Latchford paid destitute locals a paltry sum to dismantle and deliver thousand-year-old stone carvings and statues of religious deities, before shipping them to Western galleries and auction houses, where they sold for millions of dollars.
For Millar, it was a story that began with the Pandora Papers, produced by the Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which tied dozens of relics to Latchford and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among other prominent institutions.
“Loot” then follows U.S. law enforcement officers and the Cambodians who, as children and young men, were pressured and duped by Latchford, and their relentless quest to secure the return of these priceless statues back to Cambodia where a dedicated museum is set to be established.