Showing 1 - 8 of 8
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.
Every molecule of Marina
Life, Published on 31/10/2018
» Marina Abramovic, sitting in the tearoom of a Bangkok hotel, was talking animatedly about the first time she learned to cook Thai food in the early 1980s.
Spooky skyscraper
Life, Melalin Mahavongtrakul, Published on 08/09/2017
» Director Sophon "Jim" Sakdaphisit likes to create his horror films based on locations. His 2008 directorial debut, Coming Soon, is set in a haunted cinema. The follow-up smash hit Laddaland -- his best-known project, which grossed 117 million baht in Thailand -- is set in a housing estate. And The Swimmers (2014) takes place mostly around a swimming pool.
Once lost, now found
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2017
» The 69th Cannes Film Festival begins today in southern France with its usual fanfare. Regarded as the world's most prestigious event of cinema professionals, the festival celebrates film as art, commerce, glitz and as cultural treasure. Fittingly, this year Cannes has invited only one Thai film to screen in the Cannes Classics programme -- the recently discovered 1954 Santi-Vina, which was once thought to be lost and has now been restored to its celluloid glory.
Tears of a Cambodian actress
Life, Karnjana Karnjanatawe, Published on 20/04/2016
» A smile is always on her face. She speaks softly and sits with her back straight. When she walks, she does so regally, like a lady. The legendary Cambodian actress Dy Saveth is now 72, but she remains elegant and decorous, with hardly a visible mark of the turbulent life she has lived.
A monthly column rounding up the best of the capital's art scene
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 25/03/2015
» It's a real shame that works by Dutch artist Daan Botlek in "Inhabited Hypercube" were only displayed for a week at Cho Why gallery in Chinatown. Yet, that was a happy sign that curator Myrtille Tibayrenc's Toot Yung Gallery, who organised the exhibition as their first nomad project after her space closed down in Ekamai last year, is very much alive and doing rather well.
That's entertainment!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/12/2014
» The year in Thai movies, music and theatre
Exhibition captures killer shots
Life, Kaona Pongpipat, Published on 19/11/2014
» At around 7pm on May 13, 2010, Maj Gen Khattiya Sawasdipol, or Seh Daeng (Red Commander), was shot in the head while giving an interview to foreign reporters. Photographer Steve Pace was there and took the key picture. His image of the collapsed and bloodied general being carried away, published in several major newspapers worldwide, is what people still remember about this still-unresolved political assassination.