Amid the sea of white mist on Vietnam’s northern plateau, film director Ha Le Diem spent three years assimilating with a local Hmong family, using only a camera and audio recorder to document their daily lives in an actual, unscripted setting.

The Bangkok Asean Film Festival rolled to an end earlier this week, with rookie director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng picking up yet another award for his debut oeuvre, “Kraben Rahu” (“Manta Ray”), which became the first Thai movie to win Best Film in the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of last year’s Venice International Film Festival.