Showing 1 - 10 of 13
Where the struggle begins
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2025
» Annemarie Jacir's Palestine 36 reminds us that the question of Palestine didn't begin two years ago but generations before that. Showing at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the film is set in the aftermath of World War I as the European powers carve up the Middle East like a spoiled child slicing his birthday cake: gleefully, arbitrarily, jabbing their fingers on a map with no regard of history or the need of local inhabitants.
Time for Asean films to shine
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/12/2021
» The pandemic notwithstanding, it has been a stimulating year for Southeast Asian cinema. Reflective, heartfelt and oddball new titles from Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have won major prizes or become critical favourites at international film festivals throughout 2021. Now, many of these films are coming to the big screen in Thailand as the Bangkok Asean Film Festival 2021 (BAFF) is set to open tonight.
Time is not on anybody's side
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/10/2021
» There's the anatomy -- the bone and the flesh, supple or flaccid. Then there's time, the cruellest judge of all. In Jakrawal Nilthamrong's Anatomy Of Time (the Thai title is simpler, Wela), the first sound we hear is a tick-tock metronome like the soundtrack of the cosmos as we watch an old lady gently tending to her tubed and bedbound husband. Time will be folded back. The old woman will become young and her dying husband will appear as a spirited, dashing military captain fighting communist insurgents for the good of the nation.
Through the prism of history
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/10/2019
» The book's title is printed on its spine: Prism Of Photography: Dispersion Of Knowledge And Memories Of The 6 October Massacre. Thereafter, from the first page on, we have only photographs with no captions.
A nation of millions can't hold them back
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/10/2018
» Rhymes and misdemeanours. Yo, yo. Rappers are threatened to be thrown in a slammer.
The pastoral romance returns
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/09/2018
» The star-crossed lovers coo. They ride their buffaloes through a verdant field, splash mud, evade spiteful parents, and make a vow at the shrine of the banyan tree. But their romance, like all memorable romances in books and life, is doomed by the circumstances of fate, tragic and scarred, and their destiny is one of the most heartbreaking in the canon of Siamese literature and film.
Mid-career recognition
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/08/2018
» Respect is earned, although in Thailand respect often comes with age. To motivate artists on the rise, the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture, initiated the title Silpathorn Artist in 2003 to honour mid-career artists — those who've contributed to their respective fields for a number of years but still not 'masters'. The Silpathorn Award focuses on contemporary disciplines — fashion, architecture, literature, music, film, performing art and visual art — and recipients, who are between 30 to 50, represent the youthful, progressive energy in the Thai creative scene. An exhibition showing their bodies of work, from design sketches to a film screening, is ongoing at Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center until Sept 9.
A not-so-mundane history
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/06/2018
» A lampshade, elegant and shiny, bears a distinct image of the Siamese constitution over the map of Thailand. A nielloware cigarette box, in solemn brass and black, also features an engraving of the constitution -- the emblematic figure of a folded scripture on a tray. Next to it are matchbox labels, pins, a glass bottle, a bowl, a water jar, an ashtray, a vinyl record. All of them carry the symbolism of the seismic transformation that took place 86 years ago.
Sucking the wind out of the elections
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/05/2018
» The verb of the week is "to dood".
A place where indies can thrive
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/03/2018
» The stone latticework of Cinema Oasis gives its façade a vaguely Middle Eastern look. Up on the 2nd floor gallery that runs along the screening room, pockets of sunlight shine in through the gaps in the pattern. Looking down, you see what's left of what was once a large pond. An oasis, maybe, as the name suggests.