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What I See When I Close My Eyes follows the kids of Mith Samlanh/FRIENDS as they tell their stories unflinchingly and simply . The film consists almost entirely of the children talking about themselves, their lives, their hopes and their dreams. Their visions range from the heart-breakingly simple dream of Choun Vatay who thinks she's ten years old and wishes for soap, to Piseth's vision of helping drug addicts kick their habit and get a job 'just like me'. The film also tracks the creation of life-sized self-portraits that the children painted in response the question, 'What do you see when you close your eyes?'
In 1975, under the leadership of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia and unleashed a reign of terror that killed two million people through starvation, torture, and execution. Every single Cambodian who survived was directly affected by that terrible war and at its end, tens of thousands ended up in refugee camps. The children of those children of the war are now struggling to find a place in the devastated remains of a country where the average yearly income is under $300. In Phnom Penh alone, there are over 20,000 children, some as young as three, who are fending for themselves and have made the streets their home. FRIENDS assists the street living and working children of Cambodia by offering them life skills, vocational training, nutritional meals, counseling, outreach, and perhaps for the first time in their lives a safe place to call home.
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