Showing 1 - 8 of 8
Living in Thailand's age of impunity
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/01/2026
» There's no place like Thailand. Joyscrolling TikTok and Reels reveals dozens of clips made by international visitors lamenting having to leave our lovely country and return to dreary Europe or joyless America. "Nobody talks about how hard it is to go from this" -- insert a cut of a wonderful beach in Krabi -- "to this"--cut to a drab, damp suburban street somewhere in the West. Add a crying-face emoji. "I want to move here!" the traveller announces. True, everybody loves Thailand.
Agents of change
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/05/2025
» Awash with saturated colour and steeped in Brazil's history of authoritarianism, Kleber Mendoça Filho's The Secret Agent has emerged as a serious contender for the Palme d'Or. A former film critic, programmer and now a leading voice in Brazilian cinema, Mendoça Filho's fourth feature -- and his third in Cannes Competition -- is a political thriller, a tribute to disappeared dissidents, and a deft ode to the way memory is passed through time and technology.
The Silent Film Festival keeps echoing
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/09/2024
» A rocket-bullet plunging into the Moon’s eye, its mouth pursed halfway between a sneer and a smile. You’ve seen it before, but it’s time to witness one of cinema’s most recognisable images from Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) in its colour glory at the 8th Silent Film Festival in Thailand, the annual banquet of early cinema hosted by the Thai Film Archive.
Andalusian dreams
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2024
» Two Middle Eastern tourists looked excited as they held up a phone to an exquisitely carved arabesque in Nasrid Palace at the Alhambra. No, they're not taking photos. They're comparing the Arabic text on their screen with the 8th century stone calligraphy. I hear them mumble in Arabic -- here's the translation:
Space oddity
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/12/2018
» Parking curbs, in different colours, are arranged in a pattern in a gallery, which occupies a section of a parking space. In one corner of the room are seven cardboard boxes, which contain dozens of brown, slightly dog-eared log books, handwritten by security guards and caretakers of the National Gallery, dating back to the 1990s. Dry report on daily activities fill page after page. "5pm: closed room 1-4. 5.30pm, close the office. Midnight: new shift starts. Situation normal," reads an entry from March 1998.
Bridging times and cities
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/06/2018
» On a recent visit to Bangkok, Baron Patrick Nothomb recalled the tremors of anxiety when the Thai-Belgian bridge was about to be assembled 30 years ago.
Beyond the cinematic glitz
B Magazine, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/05/2018
» In the past 10 days the seaside city of Cannes has been in the news with noisy fanfare and dazzling colour, led by pictures of bare-shouldered stars sauntering down the red carpet on a daily basis. It happens every year in May, as the world's largest cine-event, the Cannes Film Festival, attracts thousands of journalists, photographers and industry professionals to the Mediterranean resort town made out to become a self-contained universe of glamour. Throughout its 71st edition, which ended yesterday, Cannes once again commanded the attention of the world.
Apocalypse again
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/05/2018
» Colonel Kurtz is returning to Scala. Nearly 30 years after it opened in Bangkok, Apocalypse Now will be screened this Sunday at noon at Scala, as part of Thai Film Archive's World's Classic Cinema series.