Showcase of local and Asian talent

Realised with a minimum budget and total free-spiritedness, the Thai Short Film and Video Festival tees off its 9th edition this year on Aug 6 and ends on Aug 17. Although the number of short-film events in Bangkok has doubled in recent years, this original festival, hosted by the Thai Film Foundation, remains a major gathering of enthusiasts, and rightly claims a respected status among filmmakers and audiences alike.

There were 218 titles submitted to the festival. After a marathon selection process, the Foundation filtered some 50 movies to screen in the final round competition. Other highlights of this year's programme include a new 40-minute film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; a collection of shorts by previous winners of the festival's Ratana Pentonji Awards; shorts co-produced by Thai and Korean filmmakers; short films from children's workshops; and screenings of new shorts from our Southeast Asian neighbours.

The 50 shorts in competition will be screened every day from Aug 6-14 at 7:30pm at House Theatre in RCA.

Other special screenings will take place from Aug 6-7, and Aug 12-16, at the auditorium of the Oct 14 Memorial on Ratchadamnoen Avenue .

In fact, as with every year, the sidebar screenings threaten to steal the headlines. On Saturday Aug 6, 11am, there's a screening of short films made by 10-year-old children who joined the Thai Film Foundation's workshop earlier this year. At 5pm the fest will screen Digital Short Films by Three Filmmakers, a triptych of DV movies by Shinya Tsukamoto from Japan (titled Haze), Song Il -gon from Korea (Magicians), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand (Worldly Desire).

On Aug 12 veteran short filmmaker Boonsong Nakpoo will screen his Life Actually, and young-blooded Patana Jirawong, whose short films won awards in previous years, is showing his first long movie Malai Siang Rak (Sugarless).

On Aug 14, the festival will screen short films made by secondary schoolchildren from Phuket, who participated in the tsunami film workshop in July. And on Aug 16, Tatthep Tong-thab is ready to expose his Top Secret, a short movie made in downtown Seoul with the co-operation of Korean filmmakers.

On the same day, the fest will screen an ensemble work called Nang Kai, or Egg Movies, which is made up of eight short films by eight previous award-winners of the festival.

The award ceremony and screenings of the winning movies will take place on Aug 17 at the Pridi Banomyong Institute in Thong Lo. For more information on the programme, call 02-800-2716 or 09-113-6533.

Bangkok Post 15 July 2005