“At first they don’t believe” tells the stories of two women who survived the violence of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, Sieng Chantei and Leay Kimchhean. How have these women tried to confront their past traumas? What has the country done to help? How have they tried to make sense of their treatment by a paranoid regime that abused thousands of people like the two we meet in the film? And what does the younger generation make of their story?

Building on the work of Changing the Story in Cambodia, a four year research project, and learning from, and with, the innovative work of Cambodian civil society organisations, the film illustrates the importance of young people learning about and acknowledging the stories of survivors.