SOUTHEAST SCENES

Back for its second year, the Lifescapes Southeast Asian Film Festival will be held from February 2 to 5 at Payap University in Chiang Mai, with documentaries, shorts and feature-length dramas.

This year, the festival will have nightly features, all Chiang Mai premieres with question-and-answer sessions with the directors.

n February 2, 6pm – “Golden Slumbers”. Davy Chou directs this documentary on the “Golden Age” of Cambodian cinema, an era that was brought to a tragic end under the Khmer Rouge regime.

n February 3, 6.30pm – “Lost Loves”. Director Chhay Bora tells the story of his mother-in-law, who lost her husband, brother, father and three children to the Khmer Rouge. Five years in the making, the drama opened in Phnom Penh cinemas this month.

n February 4, 7pm – “At the Horizon”. Anysay Keola directs this thriller, a first for the fledgling Laotian film industry. It’s about two men from different walks of life who are doomed to share a destiny after a night out in Vientiane.

n February 5, 7pm – “Hi-So”. Aditya Assarat directs this loosely autobiographical feature about a US-schooled Thai actor (Ananda Everingham) who can no longer connect to his American girlfriend. He then gets a Thai girlfriend and the same problems happen all over again. This is the closing film and will be at the Vista Kad Suan Kaew.

Other Thai films are the documentaries “Baby Arabia” by Panu Aree, Kaweenipon Ketprasit and Kong Rithdee, about a Thai Muslim band that pours its heart and soul into an infectious blend of Arabic rock ‘n’ roll, and “Lumpinee” by Chira Wichaisuthikul, about child boxers living in a Muay Thai training camp.

From Vietnam is “With or Without Me”, a documentary about two men fighting heroin addiction and living with HIV. There’s also “Hanoi Eclipse” by Barley Norton, about the controversial Vietnamese band Dai Lam Linh.

There’s also “Aung San Suu Kyi – Lady of No Fear” and “Into the Current: Burma’s Political Prisoners” as well as a selection from Rangoon’s recent Art of Freedom Film Festival organised by Suu Kyi and the formerly imprisoned comedian Zarganar in Rangoon.

Panel discussions include “States of Censorship”, with panellists from the five mainland Southeast Asian countries as well as “Gender and Sexuality in Myanmar and Vietnam”, accompanied by the Yangon Film School short “Burmese Butterfly”, about transgendered youth, and the short doc, “Which Way to the Sea”, about lesbian couples in Vietnam.

 

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