Bangkok, Film Aficionado’s Delight

If you love Bangkok and the good life, there are many goodies coming up. In September we’ll have the return of the World Gourmet Festival – we’ll bring an in-depth preview about what you’d miss. Seriously, rediscover the art of food.

And if you’re a film aficionado, well, what better place than Bangkok. Big Mango is crazy with film festivals, and if you think that there’s a film festival every month or so in the city, well, you wouldn’t be too far wrong.

Over the next three months, there will be major film festivals nearly back to back. The fun starts at the end of this month with the Thai Short Film & Video Festival, followed by the Bangkok International Film Festival in September and then the World Film Festival of Bangkok at the end of October.

By Wise Kwai, Thai Film Journal

The Thai Short Film & Video Festival, running from August 29th to September 14th, is put on by the Thai Film Foundation, a small organization run by some dedicated film scholars and historians. Now in its 12th edition, it’s the longest-running Thai film festival.

This year, it’s taking place at the Bangkok Art & Culture Center – the first film event for the brand-spanking-new facility caddycorner from Siam Square.

The Thai Short Film & Video Festival is an important showcase for young, up-and-coming Thai independent filmmakers, as well as an interesting look at documentaries and experimental works from international art-film directors.

It’s a competitive festival, with the top prize – the R.D. Pestonji Award, named after a pioneering Thai-Indian auteur – carrying a 20,000 baht purse. Thanks to the digital explosion, a record 400 submissions were received this year, and the organizers had to watch them all.

They narrowed the selection down during the Short Film Marathon, which wrapped up on August 10, after showing films for ten hours a day every Saturday and Sunday for a month. Some of the films were admittedly pretty awful, says the Thai Film Foundation’s Chalida Uabumrungjit, evidence that even though digital cameras and video-editing software have made it easier to make movies, technology is no substitute for raw talent.

If short films haven’t filled you up, then head over to the SF World multiplex at Central World shopping center from September 23rd to 30th and dig into the big buffet offered at the Bangkok International Film Festival. This year is the sixth for the festival, which has seen its share of highs and lows since it started in 2003.

The Bangkok International Film Festival began as a glitzy, star-studded event, with Hollywood celebrities flown in to strut the red carpets and add glamor to the government-sponsored fest. Organized by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, the aim was to make Bangkok as celebrated as festival cities like Cannes, Venice and Pusan.

But the giddy, Champagne cocktail-fuelled ride didn’t last. Usually, the festival had been held in January or February, but last year it was postponed until July, its budget was slashed from around 200 million baht to 80 million baht and a controversial management contract with a Los Angeles company to run the festival was cancelled.

Rather than flying in the likes of Catherine Deneuve or Christopher Lee, the festival took on a more regional flavor, with 1970s Bollywood starlet Hema Malini the biggest celebrity.

Then, in December, the other shoe dropped — the Hollywood producer and his wife who ran the company hired by the TAT to manage the festival, was charged with bribery by the US Justice Department. The indictment, which alleged the couple had paid out $1.7 million in bribes to secure the management contract, named the former governor of the TAT as the recipient.

And though a probe by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation said the allegations were “well founded,” the case, which is politically complicated, has not progressed.

Working to put all that behind them is a new management team. They have an even smaller budget, around 25 million baht, yet they have big plans. Instead of importing movie stars, they aim to make sure every film is subtitled in Thai – something that hadn’t been accomplished before. Even though organizers hope to bring in Thai audiences, the TAT is still involved as a sponsor.

In charge is the Federation of National Film Associations of Thailand (FNFAT) and the Thai Film Directors Association, and the industry players are relishing their chance to call the shots. Influential producer Yongyoot Thongkongton is the artistic director, and indie filmmakers Pimpaka Towira and Mei Meksuwan are the enthusiastic programmers.

King Power, the purveyors of duty-free merchandise at Suvarnabhumi Airport, is another big sponsor, and the festival’s workshops and awards banquet will take place in the King Power Complex and the luxurious Pullman Hotel near Victory Monument.

Alongside the Bangkok International Film Festival will be the Thailand Entertainment Expo, running from September 24th to 28th at Siam Paragon. The first year for the Expo, it is an expansion of the Bangkok Film Market, which sought to make Thailand a regional hub for the film industry. Competing with more -established film markets in Pusan and Hong Kong, the Bangkok market never really took off.

This year, the Department of Export Promotion has expanded the concept to include music, computer games, television and other forms of entertainment, in addition to movies.

The slate of films for the Bangkok International Film Festival has yet to be announced, though the organizers say they have their eyes on around 80 features, including the new Coen brothers’ comedy “Burn After Reading,” which premieres at the Venice Film Festival. Just don’t expect the film’s star, Brad Pitt, to turn up for the Bangkok premiere.

Dizziness from film-festival overload will just about be dispelled when the 6th World Film Festival of Bangkok unspools from October 24th to November 2nd at Paragon Cineplex. This film festival was started by Nation Multimedia, which had previously run the plainly named Bangkok Film Festival (note: no “International”) from 1998 until around 2001.

The Nation joined with the TAT in organizing the first Bangkok International Film Festival in 2003, but The Nation’s execs were left so soured by their experience in dealing with the prestige-obsessed, starry-eyed TAT people, they started their own festival later that same year.

Programmed by Kriengsak “Victor” Silakong, a well-travelled and ebullient cineaste of impeccable taste, the World Film Festival of Bangkok has been a decidedly lower-key affair than the Bangkok International Film Festival. The World Film Fest’s focus leans more towards the avant-garde and independent than the mainstream industry fare of the “international” festival.

If you’re looking for quirkiness, then the World Film Festival of Bangkok is the place for you. With less pretension and ceremony than that “other” festival, the World Film Festival has its Harvest of Talents competition, which mainly rounds up directors who are making their first or second films.

Putting forth some cash to prove its desire to support indie filmmakers, the World Film Festival of Bangkok initiated the Produire au Sud Bangkok (Produce in the South) project in 2004. A partnership with the Festival of Three Continents in Nantes, France, Produire au Sud Bangkok provides script-development funds to young filmmakers from Southeast Asia.

The first project, “A Moment in June” by Thai helmer O Nathapon, will make its premiere at this year’s fest. A second film, by acclaimed Malaysian filmmmaker Liew Seng Tat, is in the pipeline, so there’s something to watch for.

These three big festivals are in addition to such events as the European Union Film Festival (taking place this year from November 27th to December 7th at Central World), and annual festivals for Japanese, Italian, French, British and Australian films, plus a myriad of other film series and special screenings put on by arthouse cinemas, cultural organizations and universities.

If you love watching films, then Bangkok is a great place to be.

This is a guest article by Wise Kwai’s Thai Film Journal




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August 19, 2008 | Filed Under Books & Movies, Culture & Arts, Travel & Tourism, Truly Bangkok 

Comments

2 Responses to “Bangkok, Film Aficionado’s Delight”

  1. BangkokDan on August 21st, 2008 1.37 am

    Wise Kwai has some more details here about the “12th Thai Short Film & Video Festival set for Bangkok Art and Culture Center.”

    BangkokDan

  2. chang dek on August 26th, 2008 5.11 am

    How about the PhoneE Fest, since everyone from Isabella Rossellini to your local pornmeister are creating content for the “third screen” … beats Kriensak’s posturing or the “others” Q

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