Showing 1 - 10 of 16
Weaving wonders
Life, Published on 01/04/2024
» While wandering Bangkok's pavements, Rattachat Phonsaen, founder of design company Pitak Style, often came across discarded items like chairs, tables and vendor carts. Inspired by his passion for handicraft items, Rattachat conceived the idea of repairing these broken objects using traditional basketry methods.
Getting soft power right
Life, Published on 08/01/2024
» After three months in office, the Srettha Thavisin government has raved on about populist policies in the guise of digital wallets and soft power projects that will create income to boost our declining economy. With optimism, we learned that Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Pheu Thai party leader and head of the National Soft Power Strategy Committee (NSPSC), has drafted a budget of 5.1 billion baht to boost festivals and creative industries. It is welcoming news to hear this government is priortising art, music, literature, design, fashion, film, food, games, sports and festivals as essential sources for the creative economy. Where this enormous chunk of budget will come from, like digital wallets, remains to be seen.
Talks to end Hollywood actors' strike collapse
AFP, Published on 13/10/2023
» LOS ANGELES - Talks between Hollywood actors and studios over an ongoing strike have collapsed, in a blow to hopes for a swift end to a crisis that has crippled the entertainment industry.
Freelance artists need rights protections, union says
Life, Thana Boonlert, Published on 06/12/2022
» A recent survey by the Creative Workers Union Thailand (CUT) shows that almost 80% of illustrators have commission-based, underpaid jobs, highlighting the precarity of freelancers who have no access to financial security, welfare benefits orlegal protection.
Honouring our veterans
Life, Suwitcha Chaiyong, Published on 21/11/2022
» If you wake up and discover that your favourite celebrity has suddenly disappeared from this world, what would you do? Pim, who is a plastic surgeon, experienced this incident. She is also a devoted fan of the popular K-pop group Little Tiger. One day, she finds she is the only one who remembers K, the leader of Little Tiger. Pim later experiences time travel to the Korean War in 1950. It was a time when Pim's grandfather, Kram, joined the 21st Royal Thai Regiment in the Korean War.
Uncle Boonmee at 10
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2020
» Rumour had spread early that morning that the Thai film would win big that night. How big? We daren't dream. The runner-up prize maybe? The Cannes grapevine, in those embryonic days of Facebook and Twitter, was fairly dependable but not downright on the money. It gives you the shape but never the details. The Thai film "will definitely win something", said one of my supposedly well-connected friends, accompanied by a speculative wink.
Preserving the ancient arts
Life, Pichaya Svasti, Published on 22/10/2018
» One night in Khanom district of Nakhon Si Thammarat province, 15-year-old Thanawit Kerddam brought out his best in performing a southern folk tale before numerous viewers. He provided the voices to more than 10 nang talung shadow puppets, sang along with fast-paced southern music, and occasionally slipped in jokes and current events. Although the audience from Bangkok did not understand the southern dialect, they felt the characters' emotions as the shadow puppets danced behind the white-cloth screen.
Guardian of Moving Images
Life, Published on 31/07/2018
» The man with the beard has collected film for 37 years. Today, July 31, Dome Sukvong's duty as director of the Thai Film Archive will come to an end, though it's clear to everyone in the Thai cultural community that the work he has pioneered nearly four decades ago -- and there's still so much work to be done -- will continue.
A trio of biennials
Life, Ariane Kupferman-Sutthavong, Published on 25/12/2017
» 'Thailand's first biennial(e)" is a phrase you'll most certainly hear next year, as the country will hold not one but three different art biennials in 2018, with the organisers of each claiming theirs as the earliest project.
Into the Khmer Rouge abyss
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/09/2017
» It's the kind of project that courts doubt and even disdain from the very logline. Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood A-lister lately known for marital drama, is directing a film in Cambodia about the atrocity of the Khmer Rouge years, based on the memoir of a woman who, as a girl, lived through it all.