Showing 1 - 4 of 4
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.
New Zealand film festival makes Thai debut
Life, Karnjana Karnjanatawe, Published on 06/10/2016
» To celebrate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between New Zealand and Thailand, the first-ever New Zealand Film Festival will be held in Bangkok from Friday until Sunday.
Will the best films win the Oscars?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/02/2016
» The Oscar night is also the Oscar-bashing night. It was always the night (or morning, in our time zone) of constant bemoaning and condescension, because the Academy voters, like most voters, always get it wrong, at least to million others around the world who believe, in our collective delirium, that we have a stake in this pageant taking place somewhere in Los Angeles. Things have taken a turn for the worse with the snap judgement made possible by social media; now the outrage and disbelief are so raw since they're aired in real time, on Facebook and Twitter, like I did last year when I was convinced that it was against every law of nature that Birdman, a well-crafted display of pretension and self-obsession, won over the more delicate Boyhood.
Evocative hymn to Thai rice
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/01/2015
» This is the film you simply have to see this weekend. Uruphong Raksasad's Pleng Khong Kao (The Songs Of Rice) is a lyrical poetry of image and sound, as beautiful as 19th-century pastoral paintings and as evocative as murmured hymns. In a compact 75 minutes, we see muddied beasts stomping the paddies and whirring tractors aglow with nocturnal eyes; we hear the chanting for the Rice Goddess and rhythmic windpipe numbers for the harvest dance. We even marvel, unlikely as it seems, at a zonk-out sci-fi rendition of a northeastern rocket festival, ablaze with fire and sparks and songs and joy.