In the center of Phnom Penh sits the former National Theatre, once a symbol of a modern, prosperous Cambodia but now abandoned, gutted by fire. It is to this burnt theater, with its ghosts living and dead, that director Rithy Panh brings a coterie of actors—among the first to return to stage after the Khmer Rouge genocide—to live and rehearse. He asks them how to rebuild their country when the transmission of culture, so essential to identity, is almost impossible and the blinding force of capitalism so powerful. An astonishing fusion of intimate documentary, fiction, and performance, The Burnt Theatre is a remarkable document of survival and resilience.