More than Thai films at Thai Short 19
NOW IN ITS 19th year, the Thai Short Film and Video Festival returns next week, with entries from around the world as well as Thailand.
Among the highlights will be a best-of selection from the Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival in France, which is the largest short-film fest in the world. A special programme this year is Out of Place, a line-up of fish-out-of-water stories of foreigners stuck in foreign lands. There’s also the annual S-Express, which rounds up innovative new shorts from Thailand’s neighbours, with curators from the Philppines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore making their selections. And, as always, there’s the Queer Programme, covering various topics of sexuality.
Culled from more than 500 entries, the competition slots will have award-winning entries from Thai high-school and university students, up-and-coming indie filmmakers, plus documentaries, animation and international shorts. Not to be missed is the Digital Forum, which gives space to longer-form experimental entries.
The fest gets underway on Thursday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, with screenings in the fifth-floor auditorium and a fourth-floor meeting room. Admission is free. It runs daily except Monday until August 23.
For the full schedule |and more details, check www.Facebook.com/|thaishortfilmvideofestival.
Also showing
The Friese-Greene Club – There’s a strong European flavour this month at the club, which has French actress-director Catherine Breillat's films on Wednesdays, Swedish titan Ingmar Bergman on Thursdays and Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci on Fridays. Saturdays are devoted to cult director and Monty Python member Terry Gilliam while Sundays have Frank Sinatra films. There’s a private event tonight, but the heavy wooden door swings back open on tomorrow for a special screening, not of anything by Gilliam, but for “The World Made Straight”. Adapted from a novel by Ron Rash, the indie crime drama is set in 1970s North Carolina, and is directed by David Burris, who will be present. He was a producer on the TV series “Survivor”. Seating for this special event is first-come, first-served. Sunday features Ol’ Blue Eyes in his Oscar-winning role in the classic World War II drama “From Here to Eternity”. Next Wednesday’s offering combines two of this month’s themes, with Bertolucci directing Marlon Brando and Breillat in the controversial erotic drama “Last Tango in Paris”. And next Thursday features the newest actor to be added to “Game of Thrones”, Max Von Sydow, facing off Death in a chess match in Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal”. Shows are at 8pm. For more details, check FCG.in.th.
Alliance Francaise – Owing to next Wednesday’s public holiday for Her Majesty the Queen’s birthday and Mother’s Day, movies will be opening a day earlier next week, but there will be no free French film. However, on August 19, the Alliance will have a special “meet the artist” screening, with French actress Irene Jacob coming to Bangkok to grace a screening of Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieslowski's “Rouge” (“Red”). For details, check AFThailande.org.
