[Jagercon] Legend of Sudsakorn

If you're in Minneapolis this week, be sure to catch Jagercon at Club Jager on Tuesday, January 28th. They'll be presenting The Legend of Sudsakorn. And trivia. I very much approve! I can't make it this time because of finalizing things with DEMONSTRA, but you should definitely go.

A 2006 Thai fantasy film, it's based on Sunthorn Phu's epic poem Phra Aphai Mani, a 30,000 line piece of work. This particular film is based upon a boy who is the son of a mermaid who is sent on a magical quest to find his father, a prince with a magic pipe. Throughout the journey, he traditionally becomes an elephant, shark, and dragon horse, and encounters kings, hermits, yogis, magic wands and spirits.

I haven't seen it myself, but for those trying to familiarize themselves with the main story, it may be helpful to understand the traditional epic. Please resist the urge to give it the subtitle: "Hooking Up."

Prince Aphai Mani and his brother, Prince Sisuwan are princes who are studying the principles of leadership thanks to their father. But when they return, Prince Aphai has instead mastered the art of playing the pipe, while Prince Sisuwan mastered swordsmanship. Both choices angered their father who drove them off.

The king did not realize Prince Aphai Mani had learned to play a magic pipe capable of putting people to sleep, or the more deadly technique of luring the soul out of the body.

Traditionally, a giant Nyakinee, Nang Phisua Samut finds Prince Aphai and takes the hottie away to her cave where she transforms into a beautiful girl who has his son, Sinsamut. When he discovers his wife's true nature, Prince Aphai Mani flees with his son. Because giant flesh-eating shapeshifter.

The jilted Nang Phisua Samut gives chase, of course. The prince and his son take refuge with a family of mermaids (Which seems odd. I think the translation may more properly be Nak, or Nagas) but the father and mother mermaids are caught and devoured by the Nyakinee in a horrible fashion. (Well, I suppose it's always horrible. This is a Nyakinee we're talking about.)

The daughter takes Prince Aphai and Sinsamut to Kokaew Phitsadan, the Isle of Wonders, and get help from a hermit.

Of course, Prince Aphai decides to have a son with the mermaid, and names the boy Sudsakorn. Because, mermaid, right?

Years go by and a passing ship with King Silarat of Phleuk arrives. Also aboard the ship is Princess Suwannamali, who is engaged to Prince Usaren of Lanka. Prince Aphai and Sinsamut ask to go on the ship, and that's the end for human-mermaid shacking up in this story. But like any epic, they're attacked by a giant Nyak who kills the King. Prince Aphai escapes to shore and plays his magic pipe, slaying the Nyak.

Young Sinsamut on the other hand, swims with the princess to another island. As they travel, they eventually run into Prince Aphai's brother Prince Sisuwan and his daughter, Arun Rasami. They all go in search of Prince Aphai.

Prince Aphai meets Prince Usaren who came out looking for his fiancee, Princess Suwannamali. But when they all reunite, Princess Suwannamali refuses to go with Prince Usaren, ending in a fight that ends in Prince Usaren's defeat, slinking back to Lanka. It was pretty easy to see this coming in the original epic.

Prince Aphai came to Phleuk. There, the widowed queen asks him to rule the country and to marry Princess Suwannamali. Princess Suwannamali was still angry at Prince Aphai for trying to give her to Prince Usaren, so she flees and becomes a nun. But the maid Nang Wali tricks Princess Suwannamali into leaving the nunhood to marry Prince Aphai.

Princess Suwannamali gives birth to twin daughters named Soisuwan and Chantasuda. Prince Usaren and his father came back to attack Phleuk. The father gets killed and Prince Usaren dies heart-broken, so the throne of Lanka falls to his sister, the beauty Nang Laweng, who naturally swears revenge. She declares that as a reward, any prince who kills King Aphai and his family can marry her and gain the Kingdom of Lanka. Sweet deal.

At least nine armies are rallied to take her up on her offer. But through a series of twists and turns, King Aphai finds Nang Laweng, and woos her, but none of the armies will call off their attack until the arrival of a mystic hermit.

In theory, you'll see something connecting to all of this in the Legend of Sudsakorn, the mermaid's son who apparently doesn't get much mention in the traditional epic. If nothing else, expect a lot of swords to get thrown, and at least one or two WTF moments.

Enjoy!

[Cinema] Queens of Langkasuka

It's been out for a while, but I finally had a chance to endure Queens of Langkasuka, a Thai historic fantasy epic based on the writing Win Lyorvin. It's ambitious with sumptuous costume and design. 

The production values are high although it often loses focus and critics are right regarding the length. But given the clear love the artists had for the material, I can see why they indulged themselves to linger in this world just a few minutes longer. It's a film where I would definitely want to read more of the behind the scene details.

For those of us interested in historical fantasies set in Southeast Asia, both Queens of Langkasuka and Dynamite Warrior serve as good reminders of what Southeast Asian fantasy is capable of, with very distinctive visuals, values and traditions that can intertwine with one another. 

If you get a chance to see this film, I would definitely check it out. It would definitely be of interest to those with a passion for steampunk and alternate history And also the use of giant whales in combat, apparently. But see for yourself.

[Film] Interviewing Mychal Mitchell, Producer/Director of Princess of Laos

I did a brief interview with film-maker Mychal Mitchell for Little Laos on the Prairie that's up this weekend. His work raises some interesting questions about how we tell our stories and how we search for our heritage and our future.

His film raises some great questions about what we look for from stories about the Lao and how do we build a passion for such movies. Princess of Laos was passed over for an Oscar and Golden Globe this year, but given the success of Nerakhoon and The Rocket, we know Lao films are capable of telling award-winning stories. And there are a great many good stories that don't get award nominations simply because of the existing industry process. But that's a post for a different day.

I am deeply supportive of Princess of Laos for a number of reasons. I like the fact that its very production challenges us about the question of who can tell a Lao story and who can 'be' Lao. We take that issue so often for granted. We have often been conditioned to think "if we're going to get help making a great piece of art, it can only come from support from those entrenched within the mainstream media and arts." Princess of Laos puts that notion to the test and vindicates itself well.

There's a line of dialog from Star Trek: The Next Generation's finale that always resonates with me doing cultural work. A character says: "We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.... For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence."  With that in mind, I'm glad Mychal Mitchell and his family are a part of that journey. I'm excited to see where his daughter Tabatha goes from this point forward in her life.

There are some who might ask about the way we talk about history in a film like Princess of Laos. The choice to frame it within a genre action-mystery than a documentary. For me, it brings to mind Raymond Chandler's old line, "When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. " Considering we're telling the story of people who escaped a civil war, that's liable to push a few buttons. I'm glad to see Mychal Mitchell taking a risk with this method, because there are some things you can do with a mystery that are more surprising than framing it as documentary. We can ask more "what ifs", among other things.

Because of the classified nature of the war for Laos, the various factions, the fog of war, the frailty of human memory, the persisting sensitivities, anyone who seriously claims they have a definitive, apolitical history of Laos is being foolish. But we CAN try to get something closer to the truth if we are persistent. We have to value the many fragmented pieces of truth we are each holding on to, rebuilding with each film, each story preserved, each conversation held.

The genre of mystery is certainly an apt metaphor for the Lao experience, not just in America but around the world. Whodunnit? Which parts of our past chase us, which parts of our past do we chase?

Francis Ford Coppola was being grandiose when he said that Apocalypse Now was not about Vietnam, but that it WAS Vietnam. Sort of a cinematic tone-poem, if you will, where the fictionalized truth was more true than 'the Truth' if such a thing existed. I bring this up because I often watch a Lao film asking not so much about the truth of the story,  but the deeper truth of the experience we're seeing presented on film. To clarify this idea: Personally, I know there are many relatives of mine who died before I ever got a chance to meet them, many relatives who don't even know I exist, and any number of variations of this experience are a part of every Lao person's heritage now. How do we reconcile with that?

Does a film like Princess of Laos give us permission to question our stories. Does it give us permission to acknowledge the gaps in those stories, yet not be paralyzed by them?

How do you say: "I am here. There were people before me, but their names are lost. But we will still go forward, with what we do know." I think Mychal Mitchell is in an excellent position to explore those questions, because many in the African American community can ask those same questions, compared to those who can trace their genealogy back to the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower.

This doesn't mean we can't ask questions about his artistic choices, because he IS putting it out there after all. But I hope our community members critique it constructively with the aim of bringing even more interesting films to the screen one day.

There are some people who think Princess of Laos drags a bit in places. That the acting is wooden in others. Maybe they don't like the melodrama, or the take on history. But I would go back to the artists' first necessary response: What are you creating, then?

As an artist, I often tell my students: We don't create to be agreed with. Especially when dealing with Lao history, Lao language, or even the Lao future. We create points of conversation which hopefully lead to many other creations. That's how you build a culture. Lao culture with not thrive presenting a monolithic, uniform version of our history. It will thrive from creating many interesting paths to take.

The vantage point of Minnesota Lao rappers is different from that of a Lao prince in Paris, or a Lao teacher in Arizona. It's different from the Lue in the hills of Laos and the HiSos in Vientiane or a nurse in Luang Prabang. They'll each tell you different versions of Lao history and where America fits into all of that. And I say viva la difference. I would be disappointed with our culture if we tried to extinguish different takes on being Lao simply because they disagree with one particularly popular interpretation. Why?

We see so many nations and cultures where they privilege those who erase conflicting versions of history, and ultimately dissenting (but not necessarily disloyal) viewpoints. Those nations are among the poorest in the world today, economically, socially, and spiritually. They do not grow by any human measure. They only grow in intolerance. That limits them, and they never become all that they could be.

If Lao culture survives, I hope it is because we remember our roots, our respect for diversity and our ability to support one another as we each try to build something better than the last thing we built. In this blog, I've often quoted Langston Hughes' 1926 essay wherein he says: " We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

For all Lao artists, wherever they create, whatever they create I hope they find their way to the truth of these words, and many others that lead not just to art, but the wondrous things art seeks in the first place.

[Film] Mekong Hotel

Well, it's either going to be your cup of tea or it isn't. From 2012, there's a write up of Mekong Hotel at Reverseshot: "Set along the Mekong River, which marks the border between Thailand and Laos, the latest film from Apichatpong “Joe” Weerasethakul is a vaporous film that’s a borderline in and of itself. Existing on a thin, delicately walked bridge between past and present, comic horror and realist drama, drifting lyricism and harsh atonality, Mekong Hotel is an hour-long avant-garde film..."

Unfortunately, it sounds much like Uncle Boonmee Who Could Recall His Past Lives, a film that I dearly wanted to like. But, in the end, I found Uncle Boonmee ultimately plodding and tedious, despite some great moments and intriguing concepts. It takes a lot of talent to make an artistic movie about a Phi Pob boring, but it sounds like Weerasethakul has pulled it off.  Here's an excerpt.

As someone who enjoyed Prospero's Books, Wings of Desire, and a great many other arthouse films, I'm not asking for Poltergeist or SAW. But there's a way to be artful, to say something, to create experiences with a ghost film in the vein of Ju-On, Shutter,  The Conjuring, or Drag Me Back To Hell. To create a horror film that pushes our buttons with a coherent narrative, not serve as a soporific. 

But at least we open the door for more interesting work in the future

[Film] The Missing Picture

The Missing Picture is an ambitious and daring film that came out recently, directed and written by Rithy Panh, a survivor of the Killing Fields in Cambodia. Sight and Sound Magazine has a great write-up by Robert Greene of the film and its meaning for our audiences today. This may be important because some may question Panh's aesthetic choice of using simple clay figurines to tell the story while juxtaposed alongside found-footage that turns out to be from Khmer Rouge propaganda.

The aesthetic premise is that the motionless clay statues "create dioramic scenes of happiness, atrocity and poetic expression. The result is at once limited and brutally effective in communicating the emotional stasis of memory and the dehumanisation that comes from the ruthless enforcement of pure ideology."

 

As an artist, and one who works in speculative poetry, I find the choice compelling and intriguing at many levels. As Robert Greene points out:

"The Missing Picture is about the cathartic power of confronting the darkest corners of human experience through film. The ‘missing pictures’ were destroyed as part of a grand, horrible lie, and the thorough excavation of these stolen memories must happen before anyone can move on."

For Lao who survived the Secret War, where so much of our history was buried, where we found so much of our lives and our interior landscape devastated by the conflict, a film like this should resonate with us. It reminds me to a degree of the heartbreak in Souvankham Thammavongsa's Found, centered on her father's discarded notebook filled with memories and experiences from the years in the refugee camp that he never talked about.

Granted, I find that many Lao would be challenged by the idea of presenting such a notion. Even in a film like Thavisouk Phrasavath's Nerakhoon, the efforts to tell the Lao story are often hampered by non-Lao support, despite the best of intentions. The results have been artistically rich, but often lack the strange, some might say weird humor the Lao have kept for centuries to address the various calamities of the day. It's hard for us to stay serious for long, without a non-Lao artist in the background on projects like this. It's hard to keep from laughing even as we're addressing the chaos that defined our country for the last three centuries, and particularly the last one.

Greene calls it when he notes:

"The missing pictures, recreated in clay, are unreal and representational, while the old footage stands in as the official, accepted ‘reality’. That this reality turns out to be Khmer Rouge propaganda, and therefore even phonier than the dioramas, becomes one of the film’s central tragedies." 

In my own work on a number of projects to confront the Lao Diaspora, I, too had considered creating works that stood in for the photographs we lost, the stories unwritten, the poems unsung. There is something corrosive about what is used to articulate the reality of the past in the present in many things I've run into, where I've had little recourse but to retreat even further into the past and into the fantastic to speak more freely of the recent present, and the roots of our community's current crisis.

I can see many of our other writers, too are following suit. We cannot have what many others have. Where are the books, the photos, the films, the many ways our culture has been expressed and passed on? There are still so many things too sensitive to discuss that we seem a long way from a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And perhaps because most Lao have great contempt for participating in the Atrocity Olympics, a notion of trying to one-up one another in terms of who had it worse, it's just as well. But there are still fundamental things we need to shore up with the mortar of expression, the bricks of memory. Will we build clay dioramas, video games, a play of kung fu zombies and cannibals? I have my suspicions, but we'll see.

[Film] Stewart Stern on The Ugly American

The University of California Press recently released a number of e-books free to the public.  One that's caught my attention this week was the 1997 book Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s. Edited by Pat McGilligan, the point of interest for Lao American movie makers and others is the interview with Stewart Stern.

In Backstory 2, Stern briefly discusses his film The Ugly American, based on a 1958 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer set in the fictional Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan. I think there are some interesting things to consider in terms of technique and navigating politics, even in a democracy.

A common thread in your films is that they could be extremely candid. Take, for example, the final scene of The Ugly American: While Marlon Brando as Ambassador MacWhite attempts, in an impassioned televised speech, to right all the damage he has done, you have an apathetic viewer switch off the television set while he is mid-sentence. That scene displays a cynicism that must have been extremely rare in American films of that time . 

For that scene, I had written a very long narration for Marlon that went on and on and on. To our amazement, he actually memorized it. I mean, we were thunderstruck. He hates to memorize things. He writes things on the inside of his hand, on the back of couches, has fake earphones so the dialogue can be pumped into his ear. It's partly, he feels that he wants to protect his own spontaneity. Like, in The Ugly American, he wore wax earplugs, and I didn't know why he wouldn't answer me when I would talk to him on the set. He wouldn't even see that it was me asking. One day he told me that he had plugged his ears with wax because the ambassador had to listen in a certain way; he had to listen as if through a wall . . . because he needed the information so badly. So Marlon will resort to anything. 

About that [television] scene, I remember thinking, "We are sending this movie out and it will be perceived as a Marlon Brando movie, and nobody is going to give a shit about anything we're really trying to say, and say through him! [Begins to shout .] How could I tell the people of America that [Americans] don't give a shit . . . and that that is what is wrong?" That's how I got the idea of them not giving a shit and showing them to them . Maybe, in some indirect way, they would get the importance of what we were saying. Get it to step out of being a movie and get it to become their experience. That's how it occurred to me. 

I remember going in to see Mel Tucker, who was the executive in charge of that film, and explaining to him what I wanted him to do. I thought it was amazingly courageous for the studio that was investing all this money in an uncertain project to put that ending on it. I never thought they'd buy it. I love that ending. 

What was the official reaction from the U.S. government?  

George Englund and I were denounced by Senator Fulbright, who stated in the Congressional Record, before he even read the script, that we were taking a very sensitive area of the world and turning it into an Elizabeth Taylor movie. She was never even considered for it. 

There was a lot of animosity [towards the movie]. Also, the world hadn't caught up with what we knew. We were Cassandras then. No one from Hollywood knew that Laos was going to happen, that Vietnam was going to happen. We knew from our trip to Southeast Asia in connection with "Tiger on a Kite" that it was inevitable and that it would be worse. That it would go on and on and on until people finally got the message. Which Nicaragua proves perfectly that we haven't gotten. We will continue to mix around in other people's business because they're not like us . . . forever! Until finally we're taught a lesson.

[Film] Doc U program receives NEA Funding

$12,000 was awarded to the Doc U program to support film-making classes for low-income adults in St. Paul. A great program, but like always, I think we could all benefit from a program like this getting an increase in funding. Doc U, a documentary filmmaking program for low-income adults. Recognizing how little representation of minority communities there is in traditional media, SPNN created Doc U to help people from these communities tell their own stories.

Since 2012, Doc U has enrolled 12 low-income individuals annually in an intensive documentary filmmaking mentorship program, with over half the participants being women and/or people of color. The filmmakers create documentaries on a topic of their choosing, with past films on topics as diverse as a Tibetan monk in Minnesota; antique bottle hunting; the search for a kidney donor; and more. 2012 participant Theresa Crushon’s film about local jazz legend Irv Williams won a Hometown Media Award for Best Documentary from the Alliance for Community Media, a national media organization.

There are a number of angles we could take on this issue, the most immediate being how might this be replicated in other countries, other states. A democracy flourishes on plurality, and on hearing other voices, even potentially unpopular ones. When a program like Doc U enables civil discourse, we can see positive adjustments and transformation to realize the best of the various visions our founders intended.

When you can train voices who have been historically disadvantage by reason of economics, for example, you move us closer to a scenario where our media outlets can return to delivering quality content for the public good. There are a number of aspects we need to consider in supporting such programs authentically. Are you promoting freedom of expression? Are you building not only an understanding but a commitment to professional and ethical standards? Do you have body of journalists emerging who will serve as ethical watchdog who are committed to hearing diverse voices and helping all of our society move forward? Will we be able to go beyond technocrat mob media, where the voice belongs only to the one with the cameras and the computers?

Our technologies are evolving rapidly to enable democratization in zones where historically, that hasn't always been implemented perfectly. There are different barriers that can be cited but this is why we must continue a march forward to enable those voices. From a community level we must do our best to ensure a stable network of financial support, because there are points where things have costs you can't get around. We have to encourage the fostering exchanges of expertise among countries and regions. We can work with each other to establish constructive international contacts, and sometimes we also have to be prepared to advocate on behalf of local media institutions.

This is a great development for SPNN and the Doc U program, but now all of us need to participate in ways that make it possible to help ideas like this reach their full potential.

[Film] Telling stories for Lao American audiences

Over at Io9.Com they had an interesting question: "Why does every story have to be an Earth-shattering epic? They were responding namely a certain sense of sameness in most of the major films coming out now. It goes well with their other discussion The Reason Why So Many Movies Seem So Similar. I'd also point out their article, 10 Lessons That We Hope 2013 Has Taught the Entertainment Industry.

It's important to me as we start seeing an increase in the number of films coming out of Laos, particularly from the work of the Lao New Wave Directors such as Anysay Keola and Mattie Do, and the infrastructure the Luang Prabang Film Festival and the Vientianeale International Film Festival are building. I think it's vitally important that Lao cinema first be by our community for community, and not merely pandering, trying to cash in on the curiosity of foreigners.

To build an international audience is laudable and should be kept in mind, but not at the expense of telling ourselves the stories we want to hear. To narrate our perspective in our own words, on our own terms. This last matter is a particularly egregious failing of one movie currently making the rounds this year, where we would be hard pressed to call it an authentic Lao movie despite being supposedly set in "Laos." One can argue there are several such films already in the pipeline trying to Lao stories without actually embracing the Lao who must still be Lao long after the filmmakers have gone back home to wherever they hail from.

With well over 400,000 Laotians in the US, Canada, France, Australia, Japan, England, Germany, and elsewhere, we are presented with a very interesting market and opportunity for the aspiring Lao film-maker in Laos. There are spoken and unspoken constraints regarding what will fly both within Laos and abroad. There are some conversations we can't have. But there are many others we should not neglect if Lao culture is to realize its full potential.

How can Lao cinema embrace the best principles of democracy while being artistically innovative, not only for world recognition, but to create a wondrous legacy for the generations of Lao yet to come?

The folks over at Io9 are making some great points I want to highlight because I think they can apply not only to movies of the fantastic or the futuristic, but to all genres.

They made note of one screenwriter's frustrations with the current Hollywood process. "They all seemed to have the same notes. 1) the main character has to be the only person who could possibly be the hero of this script. They have an epic destiny or a very specific set of skills that make them perfect. Gone are the days when a protagonist could be an anybody who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. 2) the stakes have to be raised. No matter how high the stakes are now, they need to be higher. This can't be about one small town, it has to have the possibility to leak into the whole world. It can't be about one man or woman saving their child. In the process, they also have to stop the villains from taking over the government."

There are stories for which this is appropriate, but can Lao cinema, in its present nascent state sidestep this largely formulaic and overexposed model regularly to create its own distinctive voice? Can it do so while remaining enjoyable and coherent entertainment? If you ask an audience to watch something for 90 minutes to 2 hours in this day and age, there should be a pay-off that's transformative for them. As I have counseled so many other writers, the point is not to sound like the authors we have, but to forge our own distinctive voice, wherever that may take us. This is not to say we blind ourselves to the work others have done, but it must still strive to be a unique participant within the grand conversations.

As a writer, I always remember the old reviewer who half-jokingly remarked that his criteria is: "Is this film more enjoyable than watching a film of the same actors sitting around talking about how they made the film?" That's a good baseline for success, but not the only one, of course.

IO9 made some great points, such as "Some stories are better smaller. The truth is that some stories are folk tales, not sagas; a tighter focus doesn't make them inherently less worthy, and their stakes are no less crucial to the story for being closer to home."

I also appreciated their points that no one, and that means -no one- is coming out to films for generic pretty or cool anymore. We also see a lot of receptiveness towards female leads.  This is all very compatible with both Lao values and Lao resources for making films. I think we can easily build upon that.

We should not seek to merely imitate, but innovate. The Japanese writer Yamano Koichi suggested, there are three phases to building a literary tradition. It's like building a house, the apex of which is Yamano's third phase, Putting Up A New House ( or "creative departure"). It's here that Yamano contends a country has found it's own original voice, one that eschewed Anglo-American models. At this point, the artists are presenting work informed by their own traditional and contemporary culture and worldviews.

So, for Lao in the US, in Laos, and anywhere abroad beginning to tackle this issue, we must go at it with a risky abandon, a love and curiosity about our heritage, and a sense of engaged voices that don't reinforce what we think we know about ourselves, but instead create plurality. Lao cinema must embrace our diversity and find a way to be comfortable within that.

But what are stories and trends you see emerging that you'd like to see more of, or less of?

Lao and a culture of film

I've mentioned the UNESCO Creative Cities Network concept in the past. One of the key art forms they're interested in is cinema. For as much as I talk about throwing our cap over the wall to reach for space, I also feel strongly that we could benefit from exploring our ability to develop a robust infrastructure or many of our arts. While the Creative Cities Network model is intended at the city level, for Lao in diaspora, where we are concentrated in numbers large enough to form whole cities and neighborhoods, I wounder what we can do to reach many of these standards, not so much to make our host country's cities eligible for Creative City status, but for ourselves, because many of these goals are quite laudable.

The following list of criteria are elements of a City of Film. Might we bring those into the different Laotown zones across the US, or abroad:

* Important infrastructure related to cinema, e.g. film studios, film landscapes/environments, etc.;
* Continuous or proven links to the production, distribution and commercialization of films;
* Experience in hosting film festivals, screenings and other film-related events;
* Collaborative initiatives at a local, regional and international level;
* Film heritage in the form of archives, museums, private collections and/or film institutes;
* Filmmaking schools and training centres;
* Effort in disseminating films produced and/or directed locally or nationally;
* Initiatives to encourage knowledge-sharing on foreign films.

Ultimately, in places like Vientiane and Luang Prabang, there are several visionaries who are taking steps to create just that. Can we in the US do any less?

Luang Prabang Film Festival December 7-11th!

If you're in Luang Prabang this weekend, be sure to catch the Luang Prabang Film Festival!

The Luang Prabang Film Festival only shows films from Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), and from across all genres. Currently, their main focus is feature films from these countries, but they also include sidebar programs of short film collections from Laos and the region.

Among the Lao entries this year are Red Scarf, I Love Savanh, and Hak Aum Lum.

In Hak Aum Lum, "Sack, a pop singer, returns to his birthplace once again after having left to pursue his dream. In doing so, he also left many people behind, especially Sopha, his long-time lover. Sack’s return to his tranquil and charming village brings back many fond memories and makes him realize how happy he is now. However, troubles follow as the result of Sack leaving the music company without permission. How is Sack going to solve all the problems with his music company and lover so everyone will trust and love each other again?"

From 2011, Sakchai Deenan presents The Red Scarf which "tells the story of a young girl on the verge of poverty who meets a boy who is too good to be true."

In I Love Savanh, "A young Japanese man on a company mission to Savannakhet learns about the language and culture of a "less developed" country than his own. At first, he thinks that he cannot stay for long, but receives a warm welcome by the staff of the local company and through their hospitality, he soon begins to appreciate the rich local culture of cotton weaving and dying. Before the end of his visit, he meets and falls in love with a Lao woman, and his relatives later visit Laos to attend their wedding. He unexpectedly begins a new life through his visit to Laos."

We don't see an entry from Mattie Do for this year, but hopefully we will see something from her for next year's festival to follow up her acclaimed Chanthaly.

There are also a number of very interesting sounding shorts from Laos scheduled, including Stitching our Stories and Our Lives on Film. There's a lot planned and as it enters its latest year, it's clear the organizers are really building a wonderful tradition we can all look forward to. Here's hoping they get even more support in the future!

Dates announced for the next H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

The 2014 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival-Los Angeles will occur September 26-28 at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro. Aaron Vanek will be jointly running it with James Knouse and Miguel Rodriguez.

Thanks to them, everyone will only go partially insane and not totally insane next fall! James did the 2013 HPLFF-LA social media (a few posts reached 46K hits) and makes Cthulhu Pickles, and Miguel runs the Horrible Imaginings Horror Film Festival of San Diego. It's a good crew, and I look forward to working with all of them to make the next year even bigger than this last one!

Personally, I think it might have to be a year where we see a big focus on the games of Cthulhu, as well, because a number of Cthulhu-centered games supported by Kickstarter and other methods are anticipated to be coming out for that year. 

From a  poet's perspective, it's also the 100th anniversary since the publication of Lovecraft's poems "Ad Criticos," "On a Modern Lothario," "The End of the Jackson," "To the Members of the Pin-Feathers on the Merits of Their Organisation, and of Their New Publication, The Pinfeather," "To the Rev. James Pyke: On His Unpublished Verse," "To General Villa," "To the Rev. James Pyke," and "New England". Which weren't exactly all time classics of his we really read any more, but they're also among his earliest forays into published writing. But 20 years later, in 1934 he'll be publishing poem like "Dreams of Yith" with Duane Rimel.

2014 will also be 80 years since Lovecraft first published the short story "From Beyond," in 1934 and 90 years since he published his classic short stories "The Rats in the Walls," and "The Hound," which has his very first mention of the dreaded tome The Necronomicon. I'd also take note that in that year he wrote "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" with Harry Houdini. Several of these have been adapted to short films and feature films.

Cinematically, it's 20 years since Full Moon Pictures' adaptation of "The Lurking Fear," although I'm not quite a fan of that version, nor Cornerstone Films' 1989 adaptation, "Dark Heritage: The Final Descendant," which would be celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Barring some non-Euclidian calamity, for the next year's festival, I'll also have copies of DEMONSTRA on hand in 2014, and will be doing interviews again with many of our featured guests who are participating.

So start dusting off your scripts, finishing up your films and pondering what will happen when the stars are right, because 2014 is going to be a fantastic experience!

Minnesota Transracial Film Festival 2013

Over at Little Laos on the Prairie they have a nice write-up about the Minnesota Transracial Film Festival, which began in 2009 that took place this Friday at the Parkway Theater. The Minnesota Transracial Film Festival (MNTRFF) was incepted by the international adoptee organization AdopSource to showcase both the community and its rich diversity, and the emerging voices telling their point of view through film, words, and music.

It was packed to the brim with transcultural adoptees, friends and families to see the latest and greatest from adoptee film-makers and artists. Here's looking forward to the festival in 2014!

A shot from the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles

A great shot of my reading during the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Los Angeles on September 28th at the Whale and Ale. A big thanks to everyone who came and all of the organizers!

I was reading three poems: "To An Old Tune," "The Deep Ones," and "The Terror in Teak," most of which will appear in my forthcoming book DEMONSTRA from Innsmouth Free Press later this year. Hopefully, in the future, we'll see even more Lao American voices involved in this fun and amazing film festival!

Photo by Todd Gardiner, copyright 2013, used with permission.

HP Lovecraft Film Festival Photos online

Everyone Question has a gallery up of photos from the LA Lovecraft fest last weekend: http://everyonequestion.com/h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-gallery

Be sure to check them out!

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival begins!

And as we begin the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, I'll just post this passage from Lovecraft's classic Nyarlathotep:

"And shadowed on a screen, I saw hooded forms amidst ruins, and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen monuments. And I saw the world battling against blackness; against the waves of destruction from ultimate space; whirling, churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling sun. Then the sparks played amazingly around the heads of the spectators, and hair stood up on end whilst shadows more grotesque than I can tell came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder and more scientific than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest about imposture and static electricity, Nyarlathotep drove us all out, down the dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted midnight streets. I screamed aloud..."

Bringing Lovecraft to Life, Re-animated and otherwise: An interview with Brian Yuzna

For our final interview before the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon wraps its tendrils around Los Angeles, we had a chance to talk with Brian Yuzna, who's been behind many of my favorite films including Re-Animator, Dagon, and From Beyond. 

A director, writer and producer , Brian Yuzna was born in the Philippines, but grew up in Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Panama before moving to the United States in the 1980s. Most of Yuzna's film work is in the horror genre, though he has also ventured into science fiction.

Like his friend and fellow filmmaker Stuart Gordon, Yuzna is a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and has adapted several Lovecraft stories for the screen. With Julio Fernandez, Yuzna started Fantastic Factory, a label under Barcelona film company Filmax. Yuzna's goal for Fantastic Factory is produce "modestly budgeted genre (horror, sci-fi, fantasy) films for the international market (shot in English language) using genre talent from all around the world and to develop local talent."

You can visit Brian Yuzna at http://www.re-animatorfilms.com

You're a legend in the H.P. Lovecraft community. But how did you get started on all of this? What was one of the hardest things for you to learn?

I got started in the movies out of pure dumb ambition - ambition to make a movie even though I had no training whatsoever. And this was in the early '80s, before there were tons of dvd extras and 'making of's' telling us how to do it. I just wanted to make horror movies so I moved out to LA.

I got started with Lovecraft because the guy I put all my chips on to make my first movie was Stuart Gordon, and he had the idea to make a Lovecraft TV show based on Herbert West. He already had a script and within a year of meeting him the script was developed into a feature film and we began shooting.

Once I got Re-Animator done I thought that Dagon would be the sequel. I thought we would use the same actors and make a series of Lovecraft movies. We did make From Beyond pretty quickly, but then it was twenty years before we finally made Dagon. In the meantime I developed a number of other Lovecraft projects, most of which didn't ever get into production, but one that did was Necromomicon. By that time I had read just about every Lovecraft story and was a serious fan.

What's your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story?

That's kind of impossible to say.

Most people say At the Mountains of Madness - and that's a great one. Shadow Over Innsmouth is quite a complete story. I love Cthulhu because of the epic nature of it. But I must say that The Dunwich Horror appeals to me in a big way. The weakness of it is that the final resolution is just a magic spell - a bit of a letdown. Charles Dexter Ward - that's a great story. I guess I like the ones that have a mystery at the core.


What has been an unexpected surprise you've found when making horror films?

How hard it is to make something scary.

At least for me.

Although I love scary movies, somehow when I am making a horror movie I find myself reveling so much in the 'weird' aspects that I often drop the ball on the scares.


What's your advice to emerging film-makers considering taking on the Cthulhu mythos?

Don't think that using dialog and voice over from the original stories that somehow you will be true to the world of Lovecraft. Adapting a written story to a movie is a difficult thing to do - especially if you want to both be true to the source material as well as create a satisfying film.

I think that one of the best adaptations of a Lovecraft story to a movie is the job the screenwriters of Re-Animator did. Read that story carefully and then watch the movie. It is a good example of a successful adaptation.


What's a project you really hope to take on in the next few years?

Necronauts.


What's your favorite music to listen to as you create your art?

I like to listen to Italian horror soundtracks from the 1970's.


Be sure to join all of us at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival September 27-29th at the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro! 

APAture '13: A Window into the Art of Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists

Kearny Street Workshop's APAture is back and better than ever!
Now in its 12th year, their signature multidisciplinary arts festival returns from extended hiatus to showcase a broad range of creative work representing some of the most promising Asian Pacific American talent that the San Francisco Bay Area has to offer.
They are proudly presenting 8 public programs, 6 featured artists in 6 artistic disciplines, and over 75 participating individual artists and artist collectives. If you get a chance, you should see them. To learn more, visit Kearny Street Workshop online.

Friday, October 4, 6 - 9PM
Film Screenings @ The New Parkway
Feat. Jennifer Phang

Saturday, October 5, 7PM - 12AM
Opening Party & Gallery Reception @ Arc Studios & Gallery
Feat. Michael Namkung

Saturday, October 12, 12 - 3PM
Artists Talk @ Arc Studios & Gallery

Friday, October 18, 7 - 10PM
Literary Night (21+) @ 50 Mason Social House
Feat. Jai Arun Ravine

Saturday, October 19, 11AM - 5PM
Comix & Zines Expo @ Cartoon Art Museum
Feat. Eddie H. Ahn

Sunday, October 20, 3 - 6PM
Performance Night @ Bindlestiff Studio
Feat. Queer Rebels

Friday, October 25, 8PM - 1AM
Music Night @ SUB-Mission Gallery
Feat. Karl Evangelista

Saturday, October 26
Closing Party (Details TBA)

All-access festival passes and individual event passes are now available.

Mattie Do coming to Fantastic Fest in September 19-26, 2013!

Mattie Do has officially announced her attendance of the 2013 Fantastic Fest at the world-famous Texas Alamo Drafthouse!

Here's how it's been described by the organizers: "Mattie Do’s Chanthaly is a different sort of ghost story, a slow burning debut that represents the first feature film ever directed by a woman in Laos, and also the first ever horror picture in the history of a nation that is still under Marxist rule and therefore officially disavows the presence of ghosts or, indeed, anything supernatural at all. The tension between past and present, between parents and children, science and tradition all factor in large here with the limitations of all building to a tragic conclusion..."

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. In years past they have presented the world premieres of THERE WILL BE BLOOD, APOCALYPTO, CITY OF EMBER, ZOMBIELAND, and GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, while their guest roster has included such talent as Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Dolph Lundgren, Jemaine Clement, Paul Rudd, Bill Pullman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith, Jon Favreau, George Romero, Darren Aronofsky and Mike Judge. They also feature world, national and regional premieres of new, up-and-coming genre films.

This is a wonderful achievement for Mattie Do, and we look forward to hearing how it went! Someone give her some nachos while she's there! Good ones!

Lao Horror Director Mattie Do featured in Fangoria #168!

 

 Check out who got into a fancy acclaimed international magazine of horror, our favorite Lao director, Mattie Do!

But Mattie, a magazine for $9.99?!? You could have bought a lot of nacho sauce and sour patch kids with that!

In all seriousness, this is an excellent article that highlights many of the current issues Lao horror film-makers will have to contend with, especially Lao women. I'm very proud of her and her pioneering work.

I look forward to the next productions she brings forward, and hopefully it will continue to help us set new standards for what Lao consider our visual vocabulary for the horrific, an area of Lao arts and culture that have until recently remained largely an oral tradition few outside of Laos have been privy to.

 

Official Guest At the 4th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Film-Festival-Los Angeles

I'll be a guest at the fourth annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®-Los Angeles this month, which honors American horror icon H. P. Lovecraft with an international film festival featuring the latest Hollywood and independent feature films and shorts inspired by his work. It will be convened at the classic art deco-styled Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro (478 W. 6th Street) starting Friday, September 27, at 7 p.m. and continuing until Sunday, September 29.

 Among the guests this year is writer and director Stuart Gordon, known for his memorable adaptations of Lovecraft's work RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND. Gordon’s 2001 movie DAGON will play at the festival, joined by the film’s producer Brian Yuzna and concept artist D.H. Covey. The festival will also play John Carpenter's IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, with Q&A from producer Sandy King. A 25th anniversary screening of the Lovecraft adaptation of THE UNNAMABLE with lead actor Mark Kinsey Stephenson rounds out the feature programming.

Other guests include NY Times bestselling author Nancy Holder, writers Leslie Klinger, Gary Myers, Cody Goodfellow, Ross E. Lockhart, Denise Dumars,and artists Jason Thompson and Mike Dubisch. Over a dozen vendors will sell at the Mall of Cthulhu. The festival will also feature over three hours of local and international independent short subjects themed around the “weird tale” that Lovecraft popularized, including many premieres.

There will be a collection of disturbing Lovecraftian music videos and live performances including musician-singer Eben Brooks, a fan favorite for his song “Hey There Cthulhu” Macabre Fantasy Radio Theater returns to the Warner Grand stage for another thrilling live audio drama, and magician Zack Dubnoff will entertain with a Lovecraft-themed séance.

Plus, a physical gallery of monstrous art will open for the festival at the Crafted Marketplace and display thru October.

 Sunday brings back the “Brunch n’ Fun” with games, a scavenger hunt, and a satirical Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast.

 The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival®-Los Angeles is made possible by sponsors who include The San Pedro Historic Waterfront Business Improvement District, Crafted at the Port of Los Angeles, the Horror Writers Association, and the Grand Vision Foundation.

This festival is presented courtesy of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival® and Lurker Films. The Warner Grand Theatre is a facility of the City of Los Angeles, operated by the Dept of Cultural Affairs.