Bangkok Cinema Scene special: European Union Film Festival, June 23-July 3, 2016

Sixteen films from 13 countries will screen for the general public in the long-running annual European Union Film Festival, starting next week at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.

This year, the festival takes the theme “Look to the Past, See the Future”. Highlights include The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgian film that was a 2014 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Finland’s The Fencer, a Cold War drama that was a Golden Globe nominee, and Victoria, an innovative German crime drama that won three awards at the Berlin film fest and has been noted for its cinematography.

Other films hail from the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

There’s also a hidden 17th film from another country, Italy, which offers a one-off, invitation-only opening-night screening next Wednesday of Tale of Tales, a horror-fantasy from noted director Matteo Garrone and starring Salma Hayek.

Here is the line-up for the general public:

• The Broken Circle Breakdown – Belgium’s Oscar-nominated drama takes its title from the American bluegrass music that brings together two musicians, a young man and woman, who have a daughter they name Maybelle. Tragedy then strikes.
• Family Film – In this 2015 black comedy from the Czech Republic, a mum and dad take off for a vacation, inexplicably leaving their children and the family dog to fend for themselves.
• The Sunfish – A third-generation Danish fisherman struggling to hold on to his livelihood finds unlikely romance when he invites a marine biologist aboard his vessel. This won many prizes, including Denmark’s 2014 Bodil Awards for best actor and supporting actress for Henrik Birch and Susanne Storm.
• Silent Heart – A second entry from Denmark has three generations of a family reuniting amid conflict as their ailing mother wants to die before her illness worsens. Directed by Bille August, it won many prizes including best film at the 2015 Bolid Awards.
• The Fencer – The award-winning Finnish drama is set in 1950, with a young man trapped between his World War II past and the future of Estonia as his country comes under control of the Soviet Union.
• Standing Tall – A French judge (Catherine Deneuve) and a schoolteacher (Benoit Magimel) take up the cause of putting a juvenile delinquent (Rod Paradot) on the straight and narrow. It was a major nominee for this year’s Cesar Awards, with Magimel winning best supporting actor and newcomer Paradot named most promising actor.
• The Sweet Escape – In another French entry, a middle-aged graphic designer seeks to change his urban lifestyle and takes up kayaking.
• The People vs Fritz Bauer – Germany’s embattled Nazi hunter, the attorney general Fritz Bauer, comes under attack after he covertly approaches Israel’s spy service for help in tracking down Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. It was a nominee for several German Film Awards, and won best film.
• Victoria – Winner of the Berlin Silver Bear for cinematography, this German thriller was shot in one eye-popping continuous take, and follows a young Spanish woman, a newcomer to Berlin, as she is befriended one night by four young men who turn out to be criminals.
• Afterlife – A neurotic young man encounters the ghost of his father and the two form a bond that seemed impossible when the man was alive. From Hungary, this 2014 comedy-drama was nominated for prizes in Karlovy Vary and Palm Springs.
• Bikes vs Cars – Sweden offers a documentary look at how bicycles stack up against other forms of transport in such cities as Los Angeles, Toronto, Sao Paulo and Copenhagen.
• Baby (a) lone – Luxembourg’s official submission to the Oscars has troubled teenagers, a boy and girl, who meet in a school-detention programme and form a bond as they take out their frustrations with society.
• Finn – A boy and his father, both mourning the loss the boy’s mum, who died in childbirth on Christmas Eve, find solace in music and religious symbolism. From the Netherlands, this family drama was a nominee for the Crystal Bear at the 2014 Berlin film festival.
• Jack Strong – Poland offers a taut Cold War thriller about top Polish military official Ryszard Kuklinski, who became a spy for the US, spilling Warsaw Pact secrets in a bid to keep his country safe. Marcin Dorocinski stars, along with Patrick Wilson as Kuklinski’s CIA handler.
• The Wolf’s Lair – Portuguese filmmaker Catarina Mourao lifts the covers off her family’s tragic past in this documentary, in which she seeks to unravel the secrets and mysteries of her family during Portugal’s dictatorship.
• Truman – A terminally ill man is visited by an old friend, and the two set out for one last adventure, accompanied by the man’s loyal pet dog.

The European Union Film Festival opens to the general public next Thursday and runs until July 3 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld in Bangkok. The festival will then be held from July 8 to 17 at SFX Maya Chiang Mai and from July 21 to 24 at SF Cinema City, CentralPlaza Khon Kaen.

Films will have English and Thai subtitles. Tickets are Bt120 in Bangkok, Bt80 in Chiang Mai and free in Khon Kaen.

The schedule can be found online. For more details, check www.SFCinemaCity.com.

(Cross-published in The Nation)

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening July 9-14, 2015

Y/our Music

Urban and city beats blend in the tuneful documentary Y/our Music, which finally comes to Bangkok cinemas after a spin on the festival circuit.

I've seen it twice, and it kept my toes tapping both times. Directed by David Reeve and Waraluck “Art” Hiransrettawat Every, Y/our Music is a bifurcated look at Thailand's social divide through the benignly harmonious prism of music.

In Bangkok, there's an esoteric blend of city folk, playing Western-influenced folk, jazz and rock, while in the countryside, there are National Artists, performing the traditional Isaan country-folk music of mor lam, on traditional instruments, such as the electric pin (Isaan banjo) and the khaen (Isaan reed pipe).

It's those Isaan sounds that mostly come through, thanks to ever-present transistor radios in market stalls, taxi-cab stereos, masked street performers and, eventually, the Northeastern legends themselves.

Here are the performers:

• Wiboon Tangyernyong – A Khao San-area optician who developed a worldwide following as a maker of bamboo saxophones.
• Sweet Nuj – Young musician and indie record label entrepreneur Bun Suwannochin formed a duo with his singer mother-in-law Worranuj Kanakakorn, and they sell their discs online.
• Happy Band – Following the tradition of The Who, Velvet Underground and Talking Heads, some Bangkok artists thought it'd be a swell idea to create a rock band as an art project. Eventually, they learned to be musicians.
• Captain Prasert Keawpukdee – A gentleman who sells used violins and Buddha amulets at Chatuchak market, he hosts old-timey fiddle jam sessions on weekends.
• Nattapol Seangsukon – Otherwise known as DJ Maftsai, he is a DJ who collects old mor lam, luk thung, string and Thai funk, and is the glue that holds this all together.
• Chaweewan Phanthu – National Artist singer and academic.
• Chalardnoi Songserm – National Artist singer.
• Thongsai Thabthanon – Phin master. "Borrowed" telephone wire from American GIs to string up his Isaan banjo and play with rock bands.
• Sombat Simlhar – A blind virtuoso of the khaen, the Isaan bamboo reed pipe. He lost his sight in early childhood and turned to music, becoming a major recording artist and performer who is still much sought-after.

Critical reception is pretty great. Y/our Music screens at 6.45 nightly until July 22 at the Lido in Siam Square. Rated G

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Also opening

Magic Mike XXL – Before he blew up big with such movies as 21 Jump Street, Foxcatcher and White House Down, dancer and actor Channing Tatum worked for about eight months as a stripper, and it was his early-career exploits that inspired the 2012 sleeper hit Magic Mike, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh and was widely acclaimed. So of course there's a sequel, with Tatum's Mike rounding up most of the six-pack-rocking crew from the first film, including Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez and Gabriel Iglesias. The story is set three years later, after Mike bowed out of the stripper life at the top of his game. They get back together for a last hurrah, hitting the road for a tour from Florida to South Carolina. Elizabeth Banks, Donald Glover, Amber Heard, Andie MacDowell, Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Strahan join the cast this time around. Gregory Jacobs, a first assistant director and producer on many of Soderbergh's films, takes over as director. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to positive, making XXL not as well received as the first Magic Mike but probably still magical enough for the fans. Rated 15+

Minions – The gibberish-spewing little yellow characters from Illumination Entertainment's animated Despicable Me franchise come front and center in their own movie, with a story that explains their origins, in which the devoted henchmen quested for centuries to find a master to serve. Their latest is female supervillain Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock), who tasks them with breaking into the Tower of London to steal the queen's jewels. If you listen closely, you might hear a bit of Bahasa Indonesian sprinkled throughout the nonsensical utterings of the Minions. That's thanks to co-director Pierre Coffin, the son of a French diplomat dad and an Indonesian novelist mum. The overstuffed voice cast also includes Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Geoffrey Rush and Jennifer Saunders. Critical reception is generally positive. Rated G

Danny Collins – Al Pacino stars in this fact-based musical drama about an ageing 1970s rock musician who is inspired to change his hard-living ways after he receives a letter of encouragement from John Lennon, delivered 40 years late. Nine of Lennon's songs were licensed for the film, which is very loosely based on the life of English folksinger Steve Tilston. Annette Bening, Jennifer Garner, Bobby Cannavale and Christopher Plummer also star. It's written and directed by Dan Fogelman, screenwriter on such films as Last Vegas and The Guilt Trip. Critical reception is generally positive. Rated 18+

F. Hilaire (ฟ.ฮีแลร์) – The writer of the widely used "Darun Suksa" Thai-language textbook was not Thai at all: he was a French Roman Catholic missionary and schoolteacher. Brother Hilaire was one of the key educators behind Thailand's Assumption College and taught many of the statesmen who would lead the Kingdom into the modern era. His story is recalled with help from a present-day scholar (Pharunyoo "Tac" Rojanawuttitham) who is looking for a new angle as he tries to write a thesis. Jason Young portrays the bearded clergyman teacher. Rated 13+

The Scar International Version – Dramatist ML Bhandevanop "Mom Noi" Devakula's adaptation of the classic tragic romance Plae Kao (แผลเก่า) is back in cinemas for one week as The Scar International Version. Adding 40 minutes of further exposition, the longer director's cut premiered at last month's Thai Film Festival in London. Adapted from a novel by Mai Muengderm, The Scar is set in the Bang Kapi countryside of the 1930s, where poor farm boy Kwan is hopelessly in love with Riam, the daughter of a wealthier farming family. The star-crossed romance has been adapted for film and TV many times before, including a beloved 1977 film version by Cherd Songsri. Mom Noi's take stars Chaiyapol Julian Pupart from Mom Noi's Jan Dara remake as Kwan and Davika Hoorne from Pee Mak Phra Khanong as Riam. It's playing at House on RCA.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – A black-clad gunfighter rides the Old West in search of enlightenment in tonight's cult-classic "midnight movie" El Topo by avant-gard auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky. Tomorrow's "precocious girl" is Natalie Portman, making her motion-picture debut as a pint-sized assassin in Léon: The Professional, starring Jean Reno and a very shouty Gary Oldman. Saturday night's "bad kids" movie is Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, which has inspired such films as Kill Bill and The Hunger Games. Sunday has another imaginary friend in the deeply unsettling Donnie Darko. And next Wednesday, it's South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, in which all the world's ills are blamed on Canada. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

European Union Film Festival – The long-running annual EU fest gets underway tomorrow night at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld with Girlhood, a French coming-of-age drama about a black 16-year-old who joins an all-female street gang. Saturday has the Czech sports drama Fair Play and the German post-World War II thriller Phoenix. Sunday has entries from Luxembourg (the Oscar-winning animated short Mr. Hublot and the death-row tale Dead Man Talking). Other entries are the Swedish documentary Trespassing Bergman, the Danish psychological drama The Hour of the Lynx and the Finnish crime yarn Concrete Night. Tickets are 120 baht at the box office. You can also book through the SF app and the website. For showtimes and other details, please check my earlier post.

According to Marguerite Duras Project – Born in French-colonial-era Saigon in 1914, author Marguerite Duras wrote steamy novels that reflected on her affairs and the expat experience. Her works have been adapted many times for films that highlight her cross-cultural romances. She also directed many films herself and wrote screenplays. This month, Thong Lor Art Space is screening some of those movies as part of the According to Marguerite Duras Project. With screenings at 7.30pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, next week's show is 1975's India Song. Delphine Seyrig stars as a twice-married French socialite in Calcutta, where she takes lovers to relieve the boredom. Other offerings will be 1969's Détruire dit-elle on July 21 and 22 and 1959's Hiroshima Mon Amour, directed by Alain Resnais, on July 28 and 29. All will have English and Thai subtitles. In addition to the films, which are free, the project is also staging a play. An Epilogue to the Malady of Death will be performed at 7.30pm on Thursday and Friday and 3pm on Saturday and Sunday until August 1. For details, check the Thong Lor Art Space Facebook page or the Facebook events page.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Burmese human-rights activist Aung Myo Min is profiled in the documentary This Kind of Love, screening next Wednesday. Directed by Jeanne Hallacy, it premiered at last month's Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival in Yangon. The 45-minute doc follows Aung Myo Min's return to Burma after 24 years in exile, and highlights his vision of human rights for everyone, especially GLBT folk. You can read more about the film and Aung Myo Min in stories from The Nation. Hallacy will take part in a panel talk, with Aung Myo Min calling in on Skype. Entry for non-members is 350 baht. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, July 15 at the FCCT.

Alliance Française – A poor theater actor who has left his wife to take up with his new love – a struggling actress – tries to make that relationship work in La jalousie, directed by Philippe Garrel, and starring Louis Garrel, Anna Mouglalis and Rebecca Convenant. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, July 15, at the Alliance.

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Take note

Upcoming is the next entry in the Cinema Diverse: Director's Choice series at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, on July 25, where Concrete Clouds director Lee Chatametikool picks How to Disappear Completely, an award-winning 2013 drama by Raya Martin, one of the leading directors of the Philippines indie film scene. Martin and actress Ness Roque are expected to take part.

Ongoing events include the Short Film Marathon, in which all 500 or so entries in next month's 19th Short Film and Video Festival are screened until August 2. Shows are from 11am to 8.30pm on Saturday and Sunday and 4.30pm to 8.30 Tuesday to Friday in the FA Cinematheque on the second floor of the BACC.

Also, if you still haven't seen the Documentary Club's latest offering The Wolfpack, it looks likely it will be around for another week or so. A weekend screening I attended was more than half full, and more showtimes were being added.  For details, check their Facebook page or SF Cinema City for details.

Bangkok Cinema Scene special: EU Film Festival, July 10-19, 2015

The annual European Union Film Festival is back for another edition, running this year from July 10 to 19 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld, screening 18 entries from 14 countries. Tickets are 120 baht and are on sale now at the box office and through the SF Cinema City website.

Under the theme of “Cinema Live. New Light”, the festival will screen stories about people striving to survive and have better lives, as well as present the cultural richness and diversity of the EU through recent award-winning films.

Highlights include Trespassing Bergman, a documentary about Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman and featuring many famous directors, the German World War II drama Phoenix, Girlhood, a French coming-of-age drama about a black teenager, '71, about "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, the award-winning Spanish romance Beautiful Youth, the Danish crime drama Northwest and Mr. Hublot, an Oscar-winning animated short from Luxembourg. There will also be a selection paying tribute to Manoel de Oliveira, the Portuguese director who died this past April at age 106.

In addition to Bangkok, the festival will bring selections to SFX Maya Chiang Mai from July 24 to August 8 (where tickets are 80 baht) and at SF Cinema City, CentralPlaza Khon Kaen from August 7 to 9 (queue up for free tickets 30 minutes before the shows). It should go without saying but I'll say it anyway – films will have English and Thai subtitles.

Here's the line-up:

• Melody (Belgium) – Bernard Bellefroid directs this drama about a young woman (Lucie Debay) who wants to open her own hairdressing salon. To achieve this, she agrees to be a surrogate mother for an Englishwoman (Rachael Blake). Debay and Blake shared the best actress prize at last year's Montréal World Film Festival, which also awarded Melody the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury-Special Mention.
• Fair Play (Czech Republic) – In 1980s Soviet-era Czechoslovakia, a talented young sprinter (Judit Bárdos) on the country's Olympics team is chosen for a secret program in which she's given performance-enhancing drugs without her knowledge. She wants off the steroids when she discovers the truth, but there's pressure from the coaches, her peers and from her mother to continue using them. Andrea Sedlácková directs. Fair Play was a nominee for the Audience Choice Award at last year's Chicago International Film Festival.
• Northwest (Denmark) – An 18-year-old street hood gets a leg up in the criminal underworld when he goes to work for a rival kingpin. Michael Noer directs this action-drama, which was nominated for three of Denmark's Bodil Awards and won best supporting actor. It was also an Audience Choice nominee in Chicago.
• The Hour of the Lynx (Denmark) – A priest is called in to counsel an inmate at a high-security facility for the criminally insane, who attempted suicide while rambling about God. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen directs. Sofie Gråbøl was a Bodil Awards best-actress nominee for her role as the priest.
• Concrete Night (Finland) – In the cramped slums of Helsinki, one young man prepares to go to prison as his younger brother contemplates following his sibling into a life of crime. Directed by Pirjo Honkasalo, Concrete Night won Best Film and six other prizes at Finland's Jussi Awards and the Spotlight Award of American Society of Cinematographers.
• Girlhood (France) – A 16-year-old girl with few other prospects in life joins an all-female street gang, where she at first experiences the rush of newfound confidence. Céline Sciamma (Tomboy, Water Lilies) directs. Girlhood won prizes at festivals in Philadelphia and Stockholm and was nominated for the Queer Palm at last year's Cannes Film Festival, in addition to several prizes at France's César Awards.
• Beloved Sisters (Germany) – The aristocratic Von Lengefeld sisters compete for the affections of hotheaded writer-philosopher Friedrich Schiller against the backdrop of social and political upheavals in France. Dominik Graf directs. Beloved Sisters won for best cinematography at last year's Bavarian Film Awards.
• Phoenix (Germany) – A woman who was disfigured in a concentration camp and is unrecognizable after facial reconstruction surgery, searches through ravaged postwar Berlin for her estranged husband, who she thinks might have betrayed her to the Nazis. Nina Hoss, Nina Kunzendorf and Ronald Zehrfeld star. Christian Petzold (Jerichow, Barbara) directs. A nominee at the German Film Awards, Phoenix has won at festivals in Hong Kong, Lisbon, San Sebastián and Seattle.
• Heavenly Shift (Hungary) – In Budapest, a young refugee from the Balkan War joins an ambulance crew and inadvertently becomes involved in the funeral business. Márk Bodzsár directs this comedy-drama, which was nominated for the Orbit Prize at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and won the Director's Week Award at Fantasporto. 2014
• Dead Man Talking (Luxembourg) – William Lamers, a 40-year-old death row convict, has a few last words on the day of his execution. No one else is around to hear them, except for the lone journalist from the local newspaper. Patrick Ridremont stars as Lamers and directs. This comedy-drama was a best foreign film nominee at France's César Awards and was a major nominee at the Magritte Awards in Belgium, where it won for production design.
• Mr. Hublot (Luxembourg) – In a world where characters form parts for gigantic vehicles, Mr. Hublot becomes fearful and decides to not set foot outside his apartment. His solitude is shattered by the arrival of a robot dog. Directed by Alexandre Espigares and Laurent Witz, Mr. Hublot won last year's Academy Award for Best Animated Short.
• Borgman (Netherlands) – A homeless vagrant gradually infiltrates his way into the sealed-off surburban home of a well-off family. Alex Van Warmerdam directs this off-beat thriller, which was a nominee for the Palme d' Or at Cannes in 2013 and won prizes at many other festivals.
• Gebo and the Shadow (Portugal) – Part of a special tribute to Manoel de Oliveira, this 2012 entry was the centenarian filmmaker's final feature. It's based on a stage play and follows an elderly accountant who seems to be hiding something from his wife and daughter-in-law regarding the absence of his son. Michael Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale, Jeanne Moreau and Leonor Silveira star. Screened at the Venice film fest, it was a major nominee for Portugal's Golden Globes.
• The Old Man of Belem (Portugal) – Manoel de Oliveira continued making films well past his 100th birthday. From last year, this short film has Don Quixote, Luís de Camões, Camilo Castelo Branco and Teixeira de Pascoaes having a chat in a garden in the middle of a modern city
• The Japanese Dog (Romania) – A flash flood hits a village, leaving an elderly man widowed and destitute. He's determined to rebuild, but has to deal with his estranged son, who has turned up after years away in Japan with a wife and son. They want to take dad back to Tokyo with them, but there are unresolved issues. Tudor Cristian Jurgiu directs, making his feature debut. The Japanese Dog was Romania's submission to the Oscars last year.
• Beautiful Youth (Spain) – A struggling young twentysomething couple, who still live with their parents, turn to making pornography after the woman discovers she is pregnant. Directed by Jaime Rosales, Beautiful Youth was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition at last year's Cannes Film Festival and won the Special Mention Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes Film Festival 2014.
• Trespassing Bergman (Sweden) – Famous film figures, including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Michael Haneke, Robert De Niro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Takeshi Kitano, Francis Ford Coppola and Claire Denis, visit the remote Faro Island home of director Ingmar Bergman, and reflect on the legacy of the Swedish auteur and his films.
• '71 (United Kingdom) – Here's the hot ticket. This much acclaimed military drama is set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and follows a young British soldier as he is accidentally abandoned by his unit during a riot in Belfast. Somehow, he must survive the night and find his way to safety. Jack O'Connell stars and Yann Demange directs, making his feature debut. This was a major nominee at the 2014 British Independent Film Awards, where it won Best Director. It also won the Bafta Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

For more details, check Facebook or the SF Cinema City website.