Documentary. Archival. Personal. Promotional.

Visual Anthropologist and Documentary Filmmaker Robert Carleton-Chhaing is a founding member of the Los Angeles experimental arts collective, Hop-Frog Kollectiv, the record label, URCK Records and Akara Films.

Carleton focuses on art, particularly film and music as a tool for social change.  He has worked on several documentary and video projects in the Cambodian and Cambodian-American communities including the film, From the Heart of Brahma, about Cambodian Classical Dancer and LBGTQ activist Prumsodun Ok, and multiple shorts with Meta House and the E.C.C.C. about civil parties in the Khmer Rouge international tribunal. He is currently in post-production on documentaries about British photographer Colin Grafton's work in Cambodia and KhmerAspora about hip-hop artist praCh Ly.  He is on the advisory board of Cambodia Town, Inc. in Long Beach, California where he has worked on multiple projects including video oral histories of survivors of the Cambodian Genocide. 

Robert has also worked on several projects with the Native American Tongva/Gabrielino community including a five part grade school education program with Rancho Los Alamitos, a documentary about the sacred Puvungna site at California State University, Long Beach, a UCLA project on the Ballona Wetlands and a cultural knowledge training program for Los Angeles County. 

With Akara Films, Robert also centers work on oral histories, personal and promotional films.