Checking in to the cinema

 The festival takes place from November 16 to 25 at Paragon Cineplex and Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada and will feature 84 films in five categories – Cine Latino, Cinema Beat, Doc Feast, Short Wave and Asian Contemporary.

As ever, one of the main attractions will be the Thai films by independent directors whose works create new forms of communication art that are able to transcend the boundaries between author and audience.

The festival opens with “Mekong Hotel” by award-winning film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Screened at the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival, the film shuffles between fact and fiction and expresses the bonds between a pob (a Thai ghost who eat human entrails ) mother and her daughter, young lovers and the river.

This year, the Lotus Award for people who have devoted their careers to the film industry will be presented to French director Leos Carax, who will come to receive the award in person and meet the audience.

His fantasy-drama “Holy Motors” was one of the most buzzworthy titles at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It features Australian singer Kylie Minogue in a small but meaningful role.

Carax’s earlier films will be shown as well – “The Lovers on the Bridge” and “Mauvais Sang”.

A further four directors showcase their works in the Short Wave category: Natpakal Khemkhao with “The Farmer”; Tanit Jamroensuksakul with Ja Daw’s Choice”; Natthaphon Amorntut offers “Eclipse” and Suthit Saja shows “A Belt And A Comb”. 

Thai Irish director Shane Bunnag whose debut movie “All for Nothing” was screened at the 2006 edition of the festival, returns with “Elephant Shaman”, a documentary about an 85-year-old ethnic Meo, the last elephant shaman in Thailand, and his efforts to pass on his knowledge to the generation.

Thailand’s pachyderms also come under the spotlight in the American documentary “The Eyes of Thailand” which follows Soraida Salwala’s quest to help two elephant landmine survivors walk on their own four legs with elephant-sized prostheses. The documentary is narrated by the actress Ashley Judd.

Other highlights are the acclaimed “Le Havre” by Aki Kaurismaki, a warm-hearted film about love that won a special mention at Cannes last year, Quebec’s “Lawrence Anyways”, which focuses on the love between a woman and a man who has undergone a sex change and Mexico’s “Post Tenebras Lux”, which won the best director award at Cannes this year. Both the young and the young at heart will enjoy the cute teenage love story “You Are the Apple of My Eye” by Giddens Ko from Taiwan. 

Two interesting documentaries relating to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant tragedy are presented. In “Dear Fukushima”, an expat Japanese photographer living in Russia visits Chernobyl to explore what the future holds for the residents of Fukushima, while in “No Man’s Zone,” director Toshi Fujiwara takes a journey to the areas around the disaster where people continue to live.

Special programmes include a showcase of American documentaries with such well-known titles as “Connected”, “Elevate”, “Shakespeare High” and “Spellbound”. The second year it’s been offered, the programme is a collaboration between the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

New this year is the Dutch Film Festival, which joins with the World Film Festival for the purpose of promoting Dutch films to Thai audiences, and to open a space for cultural exchanges between the countries as well. The line-up includes “All We Ever Wanted,” “The Happy Housewife,” “Meet the Fokkens,” and “Win/Win”.

As has become a tradition for the festival, the closing film is a musical, and this year it’s “Fados”, a Portuguese music documentary by Carlos Saura. Using Lisbon as a backdrop, Saura explores Portugal’s most emblematic musical genre and its haunting spirit of saudade – melancholy.

The closing venue has yet to be announced.

 

The World Film Festival is organised by the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with Nation Broadcasting Corporation, The Nation, and Major Cineplex.

 

 

Eyes on the screen

Tickets cost Bt100 and are available at the cinema. For more information, visit www.WorldFilmBKK.com.

Watch the trailers at www.NationMultiMedia.com.