Same Same But Different is a 2009 German drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 starring David Kross

David Kross

David Kross is a German actor. He is best known internationally for his role as Michael Berg in The Reader.- Early life :...

 and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk

Apinya Sakuljaroensuk

Apinya Sakuljaroensuk is a Thai actress born on 27 May 1990.Her first movie was Ploy directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. The movie was premiered at the International Film Festival in Cannes in 2007...

. It was directed by Detlev Buck

Detlev Buck

Detlev Buck is a German film director and actor.-Life and work:From his first short film at the age of 21 in 1982, Erst die Arbeit und dann?, he has remained one of the most important filmmakers working in Germany...

.The script follows the Benjamin Prüfer's 2006 article which was published in a magazine and later as a novel in 2007.

The title of Same Same But Different is indeed an Asian-English phrase, mainly used in all South East Asia, although the film is set in Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

.

The film first premiered at the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival

Locarno International Film Festival

The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...

 on 13 August 2009.

Plot

Benjamin (David Kross), a German high school student, is a backpacker on his first major tour. In a nightclub at Phnom Penh, he meets the young local, Sreykeo (played by Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), and he falls in love with her. Ben opts for this love, even though Sreykeo turns out to be HIV positive and seems to be a prostitute. It is based on the true history of Sreykeo Sorvan and Benjamin Prüfer.

Cast

• David Kross
  David Kross
  David Kross is a German actor. He is best known internationally for his role as Michael Berg in The Reader.- Early life :...
  
   as Ben
• Apinya Sakuljaroensuk
  Apinya Sakuljaroensuk
  Apinya Sakuljaroensuk is a Thai actress born on 27 May 1990.Her first movie was Ploy directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. The movie was premiered at the International Film Festival in Cannes in 2007...
  
   as Sreykeo
• Wanda Badwal as Lilli
• Stefan Konarske as Ed
• Jens Harzer as Henry
• Anne Müller as Claudia
• Michael Ostrowski as Alex
• Marie Jung as Regula
• Lucile Charlemagne as Marie
• Julia Primus as Vanessa
• Constanze Becker as Sibylle
• Olli Dittrich as Ben's father
• Gilla Cremer as Ben's mother
• Em Boun Nat as Sreykeo's father
• Ok Sokha as Sreykeo's mother
• Anatole Taubman as the hotel manager

Award

Same Same But Different was at the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival on 13 August 2009; and entered in the festival competition, the "Variety Piazza Grande Award ". This award is conferred by critics of the American magazine Variety (the entertainment industry, an industry newspaper) to films that they satisfy both through its artistic qualities as well as through their international evaluation opportunities.