Where Cambodia’s war left minefields, Angelina Jolie made a home

STAR. Actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie poses at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

Sara Komatsu/WikiPortraits

‘It's not a sacrifice to live a life for others. It's a great joy,’ Angelina Jolie says, reflecting on her adoption of her Cambodian son Maddox and her more than two decades of work with Cambodia

AT A GLANCE

• Angelina Jolie began her deep connection with Cambodia during the filming of 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.'
• At the ASEAN Inclusive Growth Summit in Manila, Jolie expressed her commitment to preserving Cambodian culture and creating opportunities for its people.

This is AI-generated. Read the article for full context. Report any errors.

MANILA, Philippines – Before a piece of Cambodian land scarred by the Khmer Rouge could be reborn as a home, Angelina Jolie first had to quite literally dig out the dangers of its past.

“The first few years, we were just demining the area, the place that is now my home. We actually found 48 landmines,” she said.

Much of the early work was about clearing explosives and making sure nearby schools and communities were safe and not being threatened by illegal gem mining, poaching, or deforestation operations. Eventually, it evolved into the Maddox Foundation, which now supports communities in Cambodia’s Samlout region.

All this began two and a half decades ago when Jolie came to Cambodia to make a movie. 

Speaking at the ASEAN Inclusive Growth Summit in Manila on Wednesday, November 11, Jolie recalled how a trip to Cambodia to film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider became the beginning of a lifelong relationship with the country.

At the time, she knew little about the country beyond its painful history of war, violence, and suffering.

What she found surprised her. Despite everything Cambodians had endured, she encountered people who were warm, generous, and extraordinarily welcoming.

“I couldn’t believe their spirits were so strong after all they had suffered,” Jolie recalled. “There was also just something. You go to certain places, and you just feel at home.”

And Cambodia would eventually become just that — a home.

During a return visit, while volunteering at a school with Cambodian children, Jolie remembered being overcome by an extraordinary feeling.

“I had this thought as clear as day that my son is here and I have to find him,” she said. “And then I met Maddox.”

Maddox was just seven months old when Jolie adopted him from an orphanage in Battambang, northwestern Cambodia, in March 2002. Now 25, Maddox has also followed his mother into filmmaking, including working with her on First They Killed My Father, a film about the country of his roots.

Jolie would go on to purchase a small piece of land near Cambodia’s border with Thailand, in a region once devastated by the Khmer Rouge. She hoped to restore it and create a home for herself and her family.

But Jolie wants to do more.

Alongside her at the summit was Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh, who worked with her on her 2017 film First They Killed My Father, a story about a young girl forced to become a child soldier during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Panh, himself a survivor of that terrible period in Cambodia’s history, wanted the story told on the terms of his people.

“Don’t make the film about Cambodia, but with Cambodia,” he said.

And while there was much talk about hope for Cambodia and the good work that has already been done, Panh also offered a sobering reminder of how fragile that future could be, especially for Cambodia’s most vulnerable.

He recalled a family whose children had to travel by boat to attend school. When oil prices rose following the Middle East crisis, the children stopped going. It was simply too expensive.

“When President Trump made war in the Middle East, what happened to the people of Cambodia?” he asked. “What happened to these children?”

That concern for the welfare of ordinary people is what has taken Jolie and Panh’s friendship beyond filmmaking and into a deeper effort to preserve Cambodia’s culture and create opportunities for its people to thrive beyond merely receiving aid.

Jolie also shared plans to bring her creative venture, Atelier Jolie, to Cambodia. Originally based in New York, the initiative provides spaces for artists and craftspeople to connect with each other and international markets.

Through it all, Jolie remains hopeful about what she and the communities around her can continue to build together, because, as she puts it, “We have to.”

“It’s not a sacrifice to live a life for others,” she said. “It’s a great joy.” – Rappler.com