Showing 1 - 10 of 226
Cannes 2024 highlights
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/05/2024
» From Francis Ford Coppola's new epic to a Taiwanese drama starring a Thai actor and a Pol Pot drama, we pick hot titles from the French film festival that kicks off today.
Travel notes
Life, John Clewley, Published on 23/05/2023
» Cambodia, like many Southeast Asian countries, enjoyed a golden era of popular music during the 1950s and 1960s, when Phnom Penh, known as the "Pearl of the Orient" became an important cultural centre, a breading ground for the meeting of Western rock and pop and Cambodian music. Author Dee Peyok in her fascinating new book Away From Beloved Lover: A Musical Journey Through Cambodia (Granta, UK, 2023) notes that "the music of East and West merged across Southeast Asia to the most fascinating mélange of instruments, attitudes and expressionism".
Preserving heritage
Life, John Clewley, Published on 22/11/2022
» Field recordings of ancient, traditional music in the Southeast Asia feature in this column. Northern Khmer Spirit Music in Thailand – Kantrum Dongman (Animist Records, 2022) covers the traditional music of "Northern Khmer" people in provinces like Surin, Buri Ram and Si Sa Ket that straddle the Thai-Cambodian border in Thailand's lower Northeast, while Exploring Gong Culture Of Southeast Asia: Massif And Archipelago (Sub Rosa, 2022) covers traditional gong music from 50 different ethnic groups in the Philippines, Borneo, Sulawesi, Vietnam's highlands and northeast Cambodia.
Time for Asean films to shine
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/12/2021
» The pandemic notwithstanding, it has been a stimulating year for Southeast Asian cinema. Reflective, heartfelt and oddball new titles from Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand have won major prizes or become critical favourites at international film festivals throughout 2021. Now, many of these films are coming to the big screen in Thailand as the Bangkok Asean Film Festival 2021 (BAFF) is set to open tonight.
Cambodian diaspora examined in RCB screening
Life, Published on 04/11/2021
» RCB Film Club will reopen with a screening of In The Life Of Music, a moving and memorable tale from Cambodia, at the RCB Forum, 2nd floor of River City Bangkok, Charoen Krung 24, on Saturday Nov 6 at 4pm.
Time to do the soukous
Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/10/2021
» Congolese rumba, sometimes called rumba Lingala or rumba Congolais, is likely to join khon, a Thai masked dance drama, khaen music of Laos, chapei dang veng of Cambodia, Cuban son and Dominican bachata on Unesco's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. In August this year, the two countries from the Congo Basin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo (ROC), announced a joint bid to add Congolese rumba to the list.
Cambodian rock via LA
Life, John Clewley, Published on 21/11/2023
» Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever has released a new studio album, Ting Mong (Tuk Tuk Records, USA), their first for eight years. The release marks the Cambodian-US band's 20th anniversary since their acclaimed self-titled debut in 2003.
Stories behind the food
Life, Tatat Bunnag, Published on 08/10/2020
» Food lovers may remember David Rocco, a celebrity Canadian chef, food personality and best-selling author from his hit cooking series Dolce Vita or from his battle against Hong Kong star Nicholas Tse in Celebrity Chef: East Vs West. To the delight of his fans, the chef is back with a brand new show titled David Rocco's Dolce Southeast Asia on the National Geographic Channel, which takes place in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and features the uniqueness of food and culture in each country. You can catch the episodes, which recently premiered, exclusively on National Geographic.
Remembering Kak Channthy
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/04/2018
» The news last week that the lead singer of the Cambodian Space Project, Kak Channthy, had died in a car crash in Phnom Penh has shocked her fans in Cambodia and across the globe. She was 38 years old.
Taking the long view
Life, Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Published on 19/10/2017
» In Greek mythology, Mnemosyne is the goddess of memory. Impregnated by Zeus, she gave birth to the nine muses with whom artists, poets, musicians, writers and historians are familiar. As a daughter of Uranus, Mnemosyne is also a goddess of time; she provides the role of rote memorisation and invents language and words where her daughters, the muses, pick up and render them. She is a goddess that makes memory alive and is often acquainted with vivid remembrance.