Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Staying afloat on a sea of despair
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2019
» Chakra (Sarm Heng) is a Cambodian peasant boy who wants to escape a rural existence that offers him no future. "How's Thailand?" he asks a friend who returns from working at a construction site in Bangkok. "If you work hard, there's no problem," his friend assures him. Through trafficking agents, Chakra is smuggled across the border, but instead of being sent to a factory or a construction site, the boy is thrown onto a fishing trawler and forced to work without pay in conditions resembling a floating prison.
Southern discomfort, by those who live it
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/08/2017
» 'I'm not really a photographer. In fact I hated photography," said photographer Mumadsoray Deng from Pattani.
Northern lights
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/09/2016
» With over 400 movies on the slot, the Toronto International Film Festival was a feast and a maze. The latest edition of this North American showcase concluded last Sunday, with Damein Chazelle's La La Land winning the People's Choice Award, a bellwether for the bright Oscar season (Toronto, unlike other major festivals, has no prominent juried competition, instead letting the audiences decide the big winner). The festival is known as a launch pad for Oscar hopefuls as well as independent titles looking for distribution. It also features a strong experimental section that casts its radical net far and wide.
Magical, musical tour
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/03/2015
» In the documentary Y/Our Music, the rustic soundscape of the Northeast clashes with the hipster cool of Bangkok's indie music scene. But it's not a deadly, destructive clash, says co-director Waraluck Hiransrettawat Every, and instead is a sonic journey that shows the vast diversity of cultures and sensibilities, all driven by the positive energy of music.
Cinematic gems in competition
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» The deadline is Oct 1, but more than 40 countries have already submitted their entries for the foreign-language film category at next year’s Academy Awards. Earlier this week, Thailand announced that its representative at the 2015 Oscars would be hit romantic comedy Kid Tueng Wittaya (Teacher’s Diary). The film, which focuses on two teachers and the indirect courtship they conduct via messages written in a diary hidden on a houseboat, was released earlier this year to a mixed critical reception but local box-office success. Life wishes its director, Nitiwat Tharatorn, the best of luck.
Zombie gentrification
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/06/2013
» Like hungry ants or rabid piranhas, the hordes of zombies in World War Z swarm and sprint and leap at their targets with biological ferocity, defying the George A. Romero rule about the walking dead being essentially lethargic. The sight of these terrifying multitudes racing along streets or piling up like columns of wriggling maggots are some of the moneyed shots in a movie that views zombification as a health problem on a global scale. To fight the undead, syringes are more useful, apparently, than guns.