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Film festival and fair celebrate 2,600 years of Buddhism
Part of the celebrations marking the 2,600th anniversary of the Lord Buddha’s Enlightenment and the birth of Buddhism on Visakha Bucha day next month, there’s the Buddhaleela Bangkok Festival with many activities to help people of all ages to learn about and understand the religion.
Organised by the Buddhaasa Indapanno Archives, the festival has two sections. First is the Lan Bhodi Fair in Royal Paragon Hall at Siam Paragon from today until Sunday. Next is the International Buddhist Film Festival Bangkok from June 6 to 10.
Lan Bodhi brings the traditional Thai temple fair into the shopping mall and is aimed at folks who are bored with traditional sermons and ceremonies. The usual events found in temple fairs have been tweaked a bit in order to embrace Buddhist philosophies. For example, the target-shooting game has marksmen “shooting” grief. And at the herbal liquor kiosk, you can learn about total consciousness and the lack thereof.
Besides talks from monks and other speakers, there is a calm zone where you can learn meditation.
Entertainment will include the Mantra Orchestra from Mahidol University’s College of Music, which will play a hymn inspired by the writings of the late Venerable Buddhadasa Indapanno. There will also be a performance of the stage play “Trap” by Manop Meejamrat.
The Buddha Panya International Buddhist Film Festival Bangkok will screen more than 30 features and shorts.
It opens on June 6 at the Scala Theatre with “The Light of Asia” (“Prem Sanyas”), the 1925 silent by Franz Osten and Himansu Rai. The Korphai band conducted by Anan Nakkhong will provide live accompaniment. Restored in 2001 by Europe’s Arte channel, it’s the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the man who become Lord Buddha.
After the opening at the Scala, the festi movies to SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.
It’s a collaboration between Thai filmmaker Pimpaka Towira and Gaetano Kazuo Maida, executive director of the Buddhist Film Foundation, which puts on the International Buddhist Film Festival.
Maida says this is the first time he has brought the festival to a Buddhist country like Thailand and that he has therefore taken extra care is selecting the films, which he believes show the diversity of Buddhist beliefs. Genres include drama, comedy and puppet animation and are from such places as Bhutan, Nepal, Japan and Cambodia.
China’s Li Yu presents “Buddha Mountain”, about three friends struggling in Sichuan who travel to Guanyin Mountain to help rebuild a destroyed temple.
Cambodia’s Rithy Panh offers “The Catch”, adapted from a novel by Nobel Prize-winning Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe, about a boy soldier guarding an enemy prisoner.
Kihachiro Kawamoto’s stop-motion puppet animation “The Book of the Dead” is about a devoted young noblewoman who attracts the tortured spirit of an executed prince. She weaves a giant shroud to relieve his pain.
“Breaking of Branches is Forbidden” (“Hana-Ori”) uses kirigami cut-out animation to tell a morality tale about a disciple who is justly punished for a momentary lapse.
Thirteen shorts from a competition being held under the auspices of the festival will also be screened. The competition is open to university students, the best of whom will be selected to join workshops with well-known filmmakers.
Brand-new shorts by filmmakers Chookiat Sakveerakul, Uruphong Raksasad and Sivaroj Kongsakul are on the programme along with “Morakote” by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
The “Carte Blanche” category, sees well-known monks V Vachiramethi, Jayasaro Bhikku, Phra Paisal Visalo and Phra Dhamma Kosajarn, taking on the roles of programmers and selecting films.
Initial plans for Buddhaleela were even bigger and included the screening of 2,600 minutes of mobile-phone video clips and a national open air expo, but those events have been cancelled.
ALL ABOUT BUDDHA
- For more about the Bhodi Festival that’s running until Sunday at Paragon Hall, visit www.Buddhaleela.org.
- The Buddha Panya International Buddhist Film Festival Bangkok 2012 opens on June 6 at the Scala and then runs from June 7 to 10 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.
- All films have Thai subtitles and all Thai films will have English subtitles. Tickets are Bt120.
- For the screening schedule, visit Facebook.com/IBFF2012BKK.
