Southeast Asian cinema seems to be finally asserting its relevance. Starting tomorrow, in Chiang Mai, the Lifescapes Film Festival will be offering a four-day showcase of Southeast Asian perspectives, with movies from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand.
Golden Slumbers
Last weekend, the Hua Hin International Film Festival, a glamour-filled but haphazard event, botched its chance to highlight Asean movies due to its poor screening schedule and a general lack of enthusiasm. But next week at the Berlin International Film Festival, new movies from Southeast Asian countries will be well represented, with offering from Indonesia and the Philippines making it into the Competition category and a rare screening of old Cambodian films organised on the fringes.
But Lifescapes is still holding its own. This is the second episode of the festival, which is co-hosted by the South East Asian Institute of Global Studies and Payap University, and this time around the organisers have secured a good mix of titles. Screenings will be accompanied by talks with film directors, while topics up for discussion by sidebar panels range from censorship in Southeast Asia (always a hot issue) to the state of stand-alone cinemas in the region.
All screenings take place at Payap University's Mae Khao campus. They are open to the public and there is no admission charge. Here are some of the highlights.
Golden Slumbers
Feb 2 at 6pm
- This documentary by young, French-Cambodian film-maker Davy Chou looks back at the heyday of Cambodian cinema in the 1960s, a visual excavation into a lost and sometimes forgotten world.
Lost Loves
Feb 3 at 6pm
- The work of Chhay Bora, this is the very first feature film ever made on the subject of the Khmer Rouge. It tells the true story of the film-maker's mother-in-law who lost most of her family during Pol Pot's reign of terror in the mid 1970s.
Shorts from Art of Freedom
Feb 4 at 2:30pm
- This is a rare chance to see short films screened earlier in January at the Art of Freedom Film Festival in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, the poet and film-maker who organised the festival after consultations with Aung San Suu Kyi, will give a talk before screening some of the titles shown in Yangon.
Shorts from the Yangon Film School
Feb 3 at 1pm
- A series of shorts made by students of the Yangon Film School, an organisation which trains and encourages budding young film-makers based in Myanmar. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the school's director.
At the Horizon
Feb 4 at 7pm
- This is an independent film produced by members of the new wave of Laotian film-makers. Anysay Keola and his producer, Xaisongkham Induangchanthy, will be present for a post-screening Q&A session.
For the full programme, visit http://filmfestival.payap.ac.th.
