Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Beyond borders
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/03/2020
» The two-channel video work by Ampannee Satoh begins with specks of light and ends, naturally, with darkness. Two cameras were attached at the bow and stern of a fishing boat, purportedly the same type used by Rohingya refugees when they fled whatever was hounding them into the sea. The images they captured are wobbly, disoriented, seasick-inducing, and for 20 minutes they simulate the experience of being lost at sea in the middle of the night -- the experience of displaced people unmoored in the lightless sea.
In the realm of Manta Ray
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/07/2019
» There's a shot of a manta ray in Manta Ray, and one is invited to read into the symbolism of the gliding creature whose journey transcends man-made boundaries. Kraben Rahu (Manta Ray) is the most anticipated Thai film of the year, and after almost a full year of travelling the film festivals of the world, like the majestic fish itself across the ocean, it has come ashore in select Thai cinemas this week.
From Laos with love
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/06/2013
» The first all-Lao film to be released in Thailand in decades, Hak Um Lum occupies that territory between naivete and honesty. Made on a paltry budget of around 1 million baht, the romantic comedy will mainly draw Thai viewers who're curious about a homemade flick from our land-locked neighbour, while those who ride the high horse of cultural snobbery will dismiss this freshman effort as totally unnecessary.
Airing new agendas
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/10/2012
» The 27-rai compound of low-rise, industrial-chic grey buildings on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road is a picture of calm authority. Nearly 900 people work here in the offices, studios and control rooms of the country's only public television station, the non-profit, four-and-a-half-year-old, largely admired if sometimes embattled TV Thai, better known as Thai PBS.
Pride of place
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/10/2012
» Twenty-five Thai films were yesterday listed as National Cinematographic Heritage under a Thai Film Archive project, now in its second year, that seeks to recognise and preserve films of historical and cultural importance. The objective is to raise awareness about the need for conservation of the country's audio-visual treasures in a world increasingly ruled by fleetingness and evanescence.
Closely observed study In Contrasts
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/09/2012
» In the ever-stormy sea of independent film-making, every ingenue goes through the same cycle of dreaming, hoping, fund-hunting. If the dream and the hope can be kept alive, they finish the film and then starting hoping all over again _ this time for the chance to get it released.
Lao new wave
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/04/2012
» For decades, the light has been out in Laos. The movie screens have become totally dark, and the profession known elsewhere as "actor" is, up to today, still non-existent. For so many years our land-locked neighbour has subsisted on a staple of Thai TV soaps and movies, cultural imports that have travelled, or been smuggled, through airwaves and distribution channels, and so much is our cross-Mekong dominance that Lao people have almost forgotten what it's like to watch a Lao film.