Three's A Treat | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

We open the year with an unusual occurrence in the cinema-going sphere: This month there will be three film festivals slated to satisfy the thirst and curiosity of local audiences. Two of them are taking place in the cultural stronghold of Bangkok, while the other has come up with the strange choice of Hua Hin. Two of them will feature alternative cinema of vastly diverse temperaments, while the other sticks mostly with munchy fares from across Asia. All of them, luckily, are privately funded.

As the fate of the Bangkok International Film Festival _ the country's "official" movie event bankrolled by the government _ remains doubtful, with its last edition in 2009, it's worth noting the enthusiasm of non-government parties, through various sponsors and shoestring budgets, to put together showcases of films that would have otherwise gone unseen on the big screen. The purposes of the three film festivals this month vary from intellectual expedition on one end to tourism brochure on the other, and their eventual benefits to local viewers, as either cultural nourishment or colourful spectacles, may be hard to gauge. Still, the trio keeps the wheel turning and expands the possibility of movie-going experience _ until the government can decide if it's time to stop wasting our strategic opportunity as leader in the Southeast Asian film scene and give us a worthy "official" film festival. If we still need one.

Turin Horse