Fears for Canadian filmmaker missing in Cambodia

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By Chris Doucette ,Toronto Sun

TORONTO - It’s been more than a week since Canadian filmmaker Dave Walker vanished without a trace while working in Cambodia.

And the missing 58-year-old’s family and friends, in the GTA and out west, are bracing for the worst.

“Every time the phone rings you wonder, is this it?” Tammy Wallbridge-Madden said Friday, explaining her cousin hasn’t been seen since Valentine’s Day and it’s hard to remain optimistic.

She and her children live in Edmonton, Walker’s hometown, and are his only surviving family members other than an ex-wife in Hamilton.

Wallbridge-Madden said she has little information about the mysterious disappearance half a world away.

And what she does know comes from Walker’s business partner, Sonny Chhoun.

He claims Walker hasn’t been seen since he stepped out of his hotel room at the Green Village Angkor Guesthouse in Siem Reap so staff could clean his room.

Walker’s cellphone, laptop and passport were all later found in his room.

“He would never leave those things behind unless he planned to return shortly,” Wallbridge-Madden said. “So something is wrong here.”

Longtime pal Ron Kurelo, who described Walker as “a real sharp guy, well educated and a world traveller,” agreed something is amiss.

“He doesn’t drink or smoke and he tends to stick to a routine,” the Oshawa resident said. “So this is unusual.”

Walker, who is also a journalist, lived in Thailand for many years, Kurelo said. He came back to Canada in 2009 to study at York University for a couple of years, then returned to Southeast Asia.

In 2012, he and Chhoun, a local filmmaker and journalist, created Animist Farm Films hoping to revive Cambodia’s once booming movie industry.

Another friend in Toronto said he exchanged jokes with Walker on Facebook the day before he vanished.

“As far as I know he was OK,” recalled Peter Vronsky, a professor at Ryerson University.

He said Walker was apparently suppose to meet with Chhoun on Feb. 14 and when he failed to show, his partner went to his hotel to check on him.

Chhoun, who has spoken to local media, reportedly said hotel staff told him Walker was last seen strolling down the street with a bottle of water in his hand.

Those who know Walker can only speculate on what may have happened.

“At first I thought maybe somebody ran him down and drove off leaving him in a ditch,” Vronsky said, adding he has also worried Walker was the victim of a robbery gone bad.

He and others have also wondered if the disappearance is tied to the new film Walker was working on, The Poorest Man.

Vronsky said the movie is about the brutal Khmer Rouge, the communist regime that ruled Cambodia in the 1970s torturing, overworking and starving millions of citizens to death.

Some of the regime’s top players have been the focus of a United Nations-backed tribunal that began in 2006 and is still ongoing.

But Vronsky said lower-level perpetrators of the genocide continue to walk free.

Walker’s cousin admits it’s a scenario she has also considered.

“He’s been interviewing people for the film,” Wallbridge-Madden said. “Maybe he talked to the wrong person.”

She said she’s been told by Foreign Affairs that a representative from Canada’s closest embassy in Bangkok will meet with authorities in Cambodia Saturday.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/21/fears-for-canadian-filmmaker-missing-in-cambodia