Sidney Ken is a Cambodian award-winning director and commercial colorist based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He has won Best Documentary at the 4th Cambodia National Short Film Festival, Best Short Film Director award and Best Short Film Award at the 3rd Cambodia Asian Film Festival for his most well-known work "Respoken (2024)", a short documentary about a handful of artists fueling the revival of Lakhon Niyeay (Cambodia's Spoken Theater) which premiered at the 13th Chaktomuk Short Film Festival. His work primarily focuses on documentaries that examine social change, culture, and environmental issues and also commercially branded documentaries and digital content.
In 2022, Sidney directed a short documentary "Forevermore" (Alt: Chea Niron) for USAID Cambodia, focusing on a youth-led Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC) project which went on to hold an international premiere in Washington, DC for DC Climate Week 2024. He also collaborated with Cambodia's Ministry of Environment, UNDP, and the European Union to create the Project Achievement video for Phase 3 of the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance.
In May 2024, he received a Video Editing & Color Grading Certificate from the Professional Institute of Cambodia x DMC and became a Certified Colorist in DaVinci Resolve through Blackmagic Design. He was awarded 1st place at Samsung Galaxy Campus in June 2024, earning the title of Samsung Galaxy Student Ambassador for creating the most engaging and high-quality video. He also pursued scriptwriting, completing the Scriptwriting 101 Workshop by Write & Eat in June 2024 and the Chakto Scriptwriting Workshop in November 2024, organized by Anti-Archive and Institut français du Cambodge. During this period, he developed a dystopian short film script, Smile Inc., which was pitched for funding to an international jury.
