Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast.

I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, host of this show, an executive editor of Emergence Magazine,

located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people in present-day, Marine County.

Each week, we feature interviews, stories, poetry, and author-narrated essays, exploring the threads connecting

ecology, culture, and spirituality.

I've known Cambodian American filmmaker Kalyani, for over a dozen years now. We met while

both finishing our first feature films, connected over a shared belief in the importance of

creating heart and earth-centered narratives, and we've been close friends and collaborators ever since.

And so it is truly special to share Kalyani's work and story in taste of the land, the fourth

and final film in our new Shifting Landscapes documentary film series that will premiere online

next week. For two decades, Kalyani has been telling stories about the changing ecological,

cultural, and political landscapes of her homeland in Cambodia.

In December last year, her short film, Lost World, screened at our shifting landscapes exhibition

in London. To create this film, she spent several years embedded in the community of Koshralao,

whose livelihoods depend on mangrove forests that are being mined for sand.

Today, we're sharing a conversation recorded live at the exhibition between Kalyani and myself,

where we spoke about the process behind creating this film, and the intimate relationships she holds with people and land that allow her to tell powerful and often heartbreaking

stories from a place of humility and connection.

Explaining the connective power of what Kaliani calls the taste of the land that is threaded

through both lost world and now our new film, she talks about how story can bring us into spaces of healing and love

with our landscapes as they transform.

Good morning, everyone.

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