Showing 1 - 10 of 19
Girlhood and a city in flux
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/10/2021
» An Indonesian teen drama and Cambodian prize-winner shine at Busan Film Festival.
Dissecting a nation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/06/2017
» Pasuk Phongpaichit's and Chris Baker's house is a verdant abode at the end of a maze in an Ekamai sub-soi. The garden at the back has tall trees and a small, tea-coloured pond. The whole area used to be a swamp, said Baker. The couple, both highly respected scholars in Thai studies, have been living there since 1987, or in their lexicon, "just before the boom" -- the high-flying economic expansion whose seismic shifts forever transformed Thailand in the early 1990s. Had they wanted to purchase the plot slightly later than they actually did -- after the boom had set in -- they wouldn't have been able to. "We came just before the high-rises."
Cannes Film Fest opens today
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2017
» The 69th Cannes Film Festival opens today with Woody Allen's Cafe Society, and the world's most influential film festival will play out its drama until May 22. As the glamour and the art of cinema fill the airwaves, here are some of the talking points worthy of note as more reports from the Croisette will follow over the next 10 days.
To Myanmar with love
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2016
» The big problem about shooting a film in Myanmar, says Thai filmmaker Chartchai Ketnust, was not obtaining permission. It was the mob of onlookers trying to get a peek of the stars.
In the eye of the storm
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/09/2016
» The photograph is brutal because the reality is brutal.
Ground reality
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/09/2016
» In The Road To Mandalay, young Myanmar migrants hide in the cargo of a truck trundling past the borders into Thailand. In Bangkok, they look for jobs with the dream that every Myanmar worker dreams: to save money and return home, or better, to go somewhere else where life is kinder. They both find work in a textile factory in the outskirts, the female weaving yarns and the male lifting machines. To them, Thailand is a land of hope, though they'll soon find out, like many Myanmar workers do, that it's also a limbo, a perpetual transit, a non-place where hope can be dashed in seconds and desire can turn into tragedy.
The late, late show
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/06/2016
» Normally prime time for television is 8-11pm or thereabouts, the period when the family gathers to watch news and series while having dinner. So it will come as a surprise to many that for Muslim audiences during this month of Ramadan, prime time for television is closer to a graveyard shift -- 3-4.30am, deep in the night while most people are asleep -- as families wake up for the pre-dawn meal before a full day of fasting.
Fragments of the region, in short
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/11/2015
» On Jan 2005, the Asian Film Archive (AFA) was founded by a group of film lovers and archivists in Singapore. From then on it has worked to preserve, restore, collect and promote the heritage of Asian cinema, as well as co-operate with other preservation agencies and archives to encourage research and critical appreciation of Asian films.
Stranded on Mars
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/10/2015
» The tale of Robinson Crusoe in space seems natural, because nowhere on Earth evokes desolation, hopelessness and maybe hope more than the black unknown of the cosmos. But then, after Sandra Bullock is set adrift alone in the dark orbit of Gravity, after Matthew McConaughey gets his share of metaphysical brooding in space, what's left for Matt Damon and his director Ridley Scott to ponder about?
Braving the mainstream
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/09/2015
» What's so romantic about a public hospital examination room? "It's a small, closed space. The two people in there can't escape each other," says filmmaker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit.