Bangkok International Film Festival

The Bangkok International Film Festival begins tomorrow. I hope to be able to go and discover some unheralded nuggets for our forthcoming film screenings. This is only the second edition of the Festival so it's still finding its own identity. But it is already stimulating interest in independent filmmaking in Southeast Asia. The ASEAN Competition has 14 films from seven countries. Malaysia will present James Lee's The Beautiful Washing Machine (link in Thai), a surreal and engaging film, and Saw Teong Hin's Puteri Gunung Ledang (Princess Of Mount Ledang), the major box-office hit of last year which (oddly) I haven't seen yet. In a measure of solidarity with the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami, the Festival organisers have dropped the opening gala event and instead will screen six films in six theatres on a humanitarian theme.