• TRAVEL

  Return to paradise

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2022

  » At Maya Bay, hawk-eyed park officials patrol the sandy stretch, whistles at the ready. It was a gorgeous morning last Thursday, just days after the fabled beach on Phi Phi Leh Island had reopened after three years of closure, and the 300 or so holidaymakers, masked or otherwise, were ambling or striking catwalk poses on the pillow-soft sand, awestruck by the emerald splendour around them.

• LIFE

  Beyond the cinematic glitz

  B Magazine, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/05/2018

  » In the past 10 days the seaside city of Cannes has been in the news with noisy fanfare and dazzling colour, led by pictures of bare-shouldered stars sauntering down the red carpet on a daily basis. It happens every year in May, as the world's largest cine-event, the Cannes Film Festival, attracts thousands of journalists, photographers and industry professionals to the Mediterranean resort town made out to become a self-contained universe of glamour. Throughout its 71st edition, which ended yesterday, Cannes once again commanded the attention of the world.

• LIFE

  EDM festival returns to Pattaya

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/12/2017

  » An electrifying electronic music party is upon us today. The Maya Music Festival 2017 has returned to Maya Space, Horseshoe Point, Pattaya, where a line-up of top DJs will entertain dancers and fans tonight and tomorrow on the beach of the resort town.

• LIFE

  Giving women a voice

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/03/2017

  » A robust line-up of films is coming to us in HeForShe Arts Week Bangkok Film Festival. Organised by UN Women, next week's festival has selected films with messages on gender equality -- or inequality -- and unfair treatment of women in different cultures (not just in the "Third World" countries, to be sure). It sounds heavy, but the good thing is that the titles picked for the event this year are entertaining and heartfelt on top of being socially relevant.

• OPINION

  'Pre-truth' far scarier than 'post-truth'

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/11/2016

  » 'Post-truth" -- that's Oxford Dictionaries' word of 2016. Trump-inspired and aided by Facebook algorithms, it clicks. What happens isn't as important as what you think happens, and if you think something is true, then what is true is simply what you think. But truth be told, post-truth still suggests an involvement of truth, how truth is there and yet is blithely bypassed by emotion and prejudice, and thus there's a more dangerous term that fits better in some places: "pre-truth".

• LIFE

  Indonesia's torchbearers

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2016

  » A woman who rises above the trauma of polygamy in Sulawesi; a Muslim girl and her transvestite father, who works the street of Jakarta; three sisters in a courtship game; a war veteran confronting the harsh aftermath of newly independent Indonesia. At the Tokyo International Film Festival this year, Indonesia is the focus of the Crosscut Asia section, a programme that telescopes national cinema for social and aesthetic angles.

• LIFE

  Filming history

  Muse, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/10/2016

  » Anocha Suwichakornpong's first degree is in jewellery design, but you won't see any gleaming items on her. A small woman with a pixie cut, the film director is more interested in crafting images than making necklaces (or wearing one) -- and that's good for her and even better for us on this side of the screen. On a recent afternoon she showed up to meet us, and the long talk was about film, memory, feminism, frozen ovum, political heartbreak and how the scourge of history has found a way into her latest film.

• LIFE

  Stephen Chow's latest is fantastically foolish

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/04/2016

  » The Chinese comedy The Mermaid became the biggest-grossing film ever in China when it came out during Chinese New Year, raking in US$417 million (14.6 billion baht), surpassing last year's hit Monster Hunt and Fast And Furious 7. Even without the hype, fans of Stephen Chow -- and there's plenty of them in Thailand -- have been looking forward to his latest madcap escapade, this time with the story of a pretty mermaid who falls in love with an ocean-destroying, banknote-burning real estate tycoon who's also her target.

• LIFE

  Scala doc to open film festival

  Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/03/2016

  » Our cinematic monument of majesty, the last palatial cinema house in town, the Scala on Siam Square stands alone in defiance and melancholy as a remnant of a different era. As its fate -- the spectre of eventual demolition -- keeps popping up in the news every few years, the movie house is now the subject of a documentary film. The Scala, directed by Aditya Assarat, is part of a pan-Asia ensemble called The Power Of Asian Cinema that will screen as the opener of the 6th Salaya International tomorrow.

• OPINION

  Voices of hate louder than the majority

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/11/2015

  » After Paris, it has been a week of heartbreak. Not again, the godless killings, the barbarians at the gate! It has also been a week of blanket accusations, of Islam-bashing, and of frantic apologies from 1.5 billion peaceful people who’re told that what they’ve believed all their lives is making them inherently evil, only they don’t know it yet (the accusers know it).

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