Antoine d’Agata
The Cambodian Room

A film by Giuseppe Schillaci Tommaso Lusena | 2009

France, Italy
fr
en
55'

Antoine d’Agata | The Cambodian Room

Trailer

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Synopsis

In a hallucinatory atmosphere, the film shows French photographer Antoine d’Agata sharing the room of a prostitute in Phnom Penh. Amid crack use, we observe the intimate and artistic relationship that develops between them. Drawing on a sensitivity that fuels his work, he reflects on his pursuit of extremes and the state of unconsciousness through which he reaches creation, offering an increasingly personal and radical view of the world. Nightlife, wandering, violence, addiction, the body, and sexuality : all are central themes in his photography. The film also confronts photography with itself, raising ethical questions about power dynamics within the medium as well as the aestheticization of misery.

What you will find in this film

A photographic trip • A voyage to the edges of unconsciousness • The pursuit of extremes • Photography as an escape • Learning to lose oneself • Power dynamics in photography • The ethical question of the aestheticization of misery

Keywords

Masters of Photography Reportage & Society Nude & Eroticism Portrait & Aesthetics

The primary state is unconsciousness. Because I, as a human being, don’t have the courage, neither physically nor morally, to what I have to do to be able to take photographs.

Antoine d'Agata

My own hell is myself. My only way out, my only hope, is the other.

Antoine d'Agata

Getting lost in a city is the sine qua non for being able to work. Paradoxically, losing oneself is a task that requires preparation, concentration, and time.

Antoine d'Agata

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The authors/artists

Antoine d'Agata

Antoine d'Agata

Giuseppe Schillaci

Giuseppe Schillaci

Tommaso Lusena

Further exploration

• Antoine d’Agata (ed. Xavier Barral) – Antibodies, Prestel, 2014. (English)
The essential large-scale entry point: a dense, retrospective sequence where violence, intimacy, and politics collide.

• Antoine d’Agata – Codex. México 1986–2016, Editorial RM, 2017. (Trilingual: ENG/ESP/FRA)
A long-form “book as document”: Mexico as a sustained descent, structured like a visual score.

• Antoine d’Agata – Paraiso, André Frère Éditions, 2014. (English/Spanish)
A travel diary that explicitly loops back to the Cambodian “Ice” experience—memory returning through intoxication and writing.

• Antoine d’Agata – AKA ANA / Red Hole, Akaaka, 2017. (English/Japanese)
Japan as a psychic space: fragmentation, ritual, and a darker, more hallucinatory temporality.

• Antoine d’Agata (texte : Guy Debord) – Situations, Rat Hole, 2007. (Trilingual: French/English/Japanese)
A raw, nocturnal sequence framed by Debord: the image as lived situation, not as moralizing statement.

Antoine d’Agata: “I can only create in a state of permanent fragility” – Centre Pompidou – interview. A strong, first-hand account of his process: vulnerability, risk, and what it means to make images from inside experience.

The Accumulation of Images: Excess and Release – Magnum Photos – essay. An analytical text on his recent formal strategies (grids, sequencing, accumulation) and their ethical/psychic stakes.

An Interview With Antoine D’Agata – LensCulture – interview. A useful entry into his practice and how he articulates experience, transmission, and the limits of representation.

A Chaotic Compendium of the World's Depravity – Hyperallergic – review/criticism. A critical reading of Antibodies as an edited object—how chaos, intimacy, and violence are structured into a book.