1950. Then aged eight, French photographer Françoise Huguier lived at Krek, in Cambodia, where her father ran a rubber plantation. The region was beginning to feel the first rumblings of the wars of independence, but life remained carefree for the little girl and her brother. 
The evening of 12 August was a festive occasion: there was a dance at a neighbouring plantation and as the children sat down to watch a western their parents were trying out the newest dance steps. Suddenly the darkness was torn by the firing of automatic weapons – a lightning raid by Vietminh commandos. In the ensuing confusion, with people dying around them, Françoise and her brother were captured and carried off towards the Mekong. So began the ordeal of two child hostages: forced marches through rice paddies and jungle, bivouacs infested with leeches, armed men all around them, and ultimately confinement in a camp for indoctrination and revolutionary training. In January 1951, eight long months later, they were freed and returned to their parents. 2003. After years spent as a busy photojournalist, Françoise Huguier decides to return to Cambodia, where she revisits the landscapes of her nightmare and of a complex childhood. Giving in to neither nostalgia nor preconceptions, she photographs and documents this reverse journey – this search for memories, for people to talk to about the past, for a personal vision of a deeply loved country.