BANGKOK FILM FEST OPENS TOMORROW - EXPECT MORE HEADACHES

The Bangkok Film Festival has been dogged by discontent, but no one could have expected the industrial strength servings of unhappiness and woe they spread around the Land of Smiles this year. In previous years the carping has been directed at the fact that actual Thai people who live in Thailand seem to have little to do with the Bangkok International Film Festival. It's organized out of Los Angeles, most of the movies aren't subtitled in Thai, and money is spent lavishly to bring over industry people who couldn't care less about the festival's interest-free programming and instead love getting a free trip to Bangkok. It was the little festival that couldn't.

This year it looked like the fest was making changes for the better, spreading the Thai movies around the fest rather than sequestering them in the Thai Panorama ghetto, scoring the much-anticipated INVISIBLE WAVES as the opening film, and going straight to the production companies to ask for films rather than letting the Federation of National Film Associations  act as the middleman. The result? The head of the FNFA called for a failed boycott and then resigned (he was also the head of Sahamongkol Film which produced the only Thai movies most people have heard of: ONG BAK and TOM YUM GOONG).

But that's exciting new criticism. What is there for people who miss the old criticism? Well, there's no shortage of that either and you can get your full helping here in this article from the Bangkok Post. Thai people snubbed, money wasted, programming irrelevant...ah, it's like a warm bath. Old criticism, I missed you.