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  • News & article

    Andalusian dreams

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2024

    » Two Middle Eastern tourists looked excited as they held up a phone to an exquisitely carved arabesque in Nasrid Palace at the Alhambra. No, they're not taking photos. They're comparing the Arabic text on their screen with the 8th century stone calligraphy. I hear them mumble in Arabic -- here's the translation:

  • News & article

    2023 ROUNDUP A vintage year for Thai cinema?

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/12/2023

    » There were cheers of jubilation and gasps of disbelief as Thai cinema found itself awash with excitement in 2023. This has been the most successful year for mainstream Thai movies in a decade, a box-office triumph far exceeding all expectations. To many, the 2023 coup de theatre calls for celebration. "We are back!" cried optimistic pundits. But also: "Really? Is it just a one-time cinema party and can we keep the ball rolling?"

  • News & article

    Asian talents score big at Cannes

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/05/2023

    » From Japan to Malaysia by way of Vietnam, Asian filmmakers of disparate sensibilities triumphed at the recently-wrapped 76th Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d'Or may have gone to French filmmaker Justine Triet from her tense drama Anatomy Of A Fall, but six other awards handed out by the world's most influential film festival went to filmmakers from Asia, an unprecedented slate of recognition.

  • News & article

    Of zombies and fairy tales

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/05/2022

    » The opening films across the three programmes at the 75th Cannes Film Festival speak of disparate destinies of contemporary cinema, from the poetic to the political and the pointless. Let's start with the latter.

  • News & article

    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.

  • News & article

    Climbing the one-inch barrier

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/02/2020

    » Hollywood gasped with embarrassment and sudden realisation when Bong Joon-ho, the director of Parasite, said in his acceptance speech at the Golden Globes: "Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to many more amazing films."

  • News & article

    Memories buried in soil

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/07/2019

    » Memories and war, illusory borders and invisible scars: These themes are resonant in two documentary films shown late last month at the SAC Film Festival (hosted by the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre). In the Thai documentary Din Rai Dan (Soil Without Land), a Tai Yai man in Shan state talks about his life as a waiter in Bangkok and as a soldier in his ethnic army. In the Vietnamese film The Future Cries Beneath Our Soil, a group of men in a rural village bear the indelible wounds of the Vietnam War, still stinging after 40 years.

  • News & article

    SEA of delights

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2019

    » The Bangkok Asean Film Festival runs until July 8 and features 30 titles. Here are our top picks.

  • News & article

    Looking for redemption

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/05/2019

    » Young Ahmed believes he's a true Muslim, one of the few in his Muslim neighbourhood in Belgium. He refuses to shake hands with women, quotes verses from the Koran, berates his mother when she drinks, and condemns Jews and pretty much everyone else as infidels. Fellow Belgian-Muslims who do not subscribe to his imam's rigid interpretation of Islam are branded heretics unworthy of uttering the prophet's name. Young Ahmed, 13, is packed tight on the assembly line of Islamic radicalisation, fired up by a sense of self-righteousness so extreme and narrow that we wonder if it leaves room for something else in him, like love, forgiveness or humanity.

  • News & article

    Les Miserables: The simmering rage of Paris

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/05/2019

    » Cannes Day 2 witnesses the rage of Paris -- not the yellow wrath of gilets jaunes, but the brown-and-black anger of rundown suburbs that makes up the complex social structure of modern France.

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