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Made For The Movies – The Luang Prabang Film Festival Story

Made-For-the-Movies-Luang-Prabang-Story

For a tiny town famous the world over for being sleepy and laid-back, Luang Prabang sure does know how to host a festival.

If you’ve ever found yourself there in the midst of Lao New Year, or the end of Buddhist Lent, you’ll know the place can turn it up like no other – being just small enough for a decent crowd to flood the streets with energy and goodwill, transforming the sleepy streets and winding lanes into conduits to the good life.
It’s the perfect place, then, for a film festival. And not just any film festival, but a fast-growing cultural event that has become a touchstone for Southeast-Asian filmmakers, and a crucial calendar event for lovers of film throughout the region.

The Luang Prabang Film Festival is now in its eight year, a highly anticipated regional event that brings locals and tourists the old Royal Capital in their thousands, lured by the concept of a town already saturated in culture playing host to the fascinating creative universe that cinema reveals.

“It was clear from the beginning that Luang Prabang would be a perfect place for a festival like this,” says Gabriel Kuperman, the festival’s founder and director.

“The town is teeming with culture, interesting architecture, and natural beauty. It’s small and intimate, allowing for visitors to get between venues with ease, and to feel the energy of the festival wherever they are.”

When he refers to “the beginning”, Kuperman is really alluding to the time when he, like many an expat before him, made the transition from tourist to resident. Born in Washington DC and formerly a resident of New York City, he finished his studies in 2008 and headed off on the obligatory southeast-Asian jaunt with a friend. After a long sojourn in Thailand, he planned to take in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia alone before returning to the US to get on with whatever life as a Media Studies graduate had in store for him. But, after three days in Vientiane, he never made it further than Luang Prabang.

“I thought I’d be here for another three days as well, and those three days turned into three weeks, and then three months,” he says.

“I never thought I would leave New York. I wasn’t looking for a place to move to, it wasn’t even on my radar.”

That’s what they all say. It’s almost impossible to describe the allure of Luang Prabang, in a world filled with quaint historic towns. But at some point, Kuperman decided to make a permanent move. He found a job at a tourism company, entrenched himself into the local life, and almost instantly started planning to set up a film festival.

  

He approached the Lao Department of Cinema, which operates under the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, with the proposal of a two-pronged mission.

“One was to help develop the local Lao film industry, and the second to create a space for South-East Asian filmmakers to meet, connect, talk about the individual film industries in the region and then a more cohesive south-east Asian film industry,” he says.

Nine years down the track, and the festival, run as an official Lao Government project, has retained the exact same concept as when it started, showing films from all of the 10 ASEAN countries, with a bursting program of screenings, lectures, workshops and concerts over six days.
And, most importantly, and unusually, for a film festival, the entire event is free and open to all.

“We want Lao people to be able to participate in anything that they want to participate in,” he says.

“We’re doing this in Laos [where] people don’t have a lot of disposable income, and I want it to be as open as possible for them.”

Kuperman and his team run the festival as a not-for-profit event that runs entirely on sponsorships and donations, and while some of the sponsorships are lucrative – BeerLao, Coca-Cola – the event has no endowment or enduring source of income.
Getting it off the ground each year means starting from scratch, although that helps that Kuperman himself has become something of a local celebrity – known to many on Facebook as Falang Seu Somchan.

The persona was born, he says, as a way of connecting more Lao people to the festival, and turning it into a local event rather than an experience only foreigners would appreciate. And if there’s one thing most Lao people appreciate, it’s a foreigner who speaks their language.

And not only speaks, but posts videos about his life and travels, linking always back to the festival.

“I felt like I wanted a better way to connect Lao people to the film festival and the work that we do in terms of our educational activities and workshops and those kinds of things,” he says.

With Around 225,000 followers, it’s undeniable that this page has helped attract both sponsors and visitors to the festival.

This year’s event promises to be bigger than ever, with more than 30 films in the program carefully curated by Kuperman and a team of cinema experts from each country represented, as well as a local selection committee.

“[The expert] is either a producer or a critic or a journalist or an academic, someone who knows the history of the film in that country, the present atmosphere and the potential for film in that country,” he says.

The festival has helped put Luang Prabang on the map for more than just its physical charms, although these are integral to the event’s success.

“Each year, as the festival has grown, with more regional filmmakers attending, participating, and contributing, it has made a bigger impact on the more cohesive Southeast Asian film community. It has filled a creative – almost spiritual – need for the region’s filmmakers to connect and dialogue in a non-competitive, nurturing space.”

Five Films Not to Miss at the 2017 Luang Prabang Film Festival: 

Burma Storybook (Myanmar)
Directors: Petr Lom & Corinne van Egeraat
Burma Storybook is a creative documentary about a country emerging from years of dictatorship, told through Burmese poetry. The film circles around the story of the country’s most famous living dissident poet alive, as he waits for his long-lost son to return home. 

 

Father and Son (Vietnam)
Director: Luong Dinh Dung Ca is a young boy who lives with his father in a mountainous area. Ca dreams of reaching the nest of what he thought is a huge bird in the sky (which is actually an airplane) and climbing to the top of the tallest building in an unknown city. Suddenly, Ca contracts a disease that seems to threaten his life. Hence, the father and son start their journey to the city.

Jailbreak (Cambodia)
Director: Jimmy Henderson
A group of Special Task Force Officers are sent to Prei Klaa prison where the country’s top criminals are detained. What starts as a simple escort mission will soon turn into chaos as the prisoners take over the prison grounds. Trapped in the building, our four heroes will have to fight their way out for survival, or die trying.

Santi-Vina (Thailand)
Director: Thavi Na Bangchang Produced in 1954, then considered lost for over sixty years, Santi-Vina was discovered and restored by the Thai Film Archive in 2016. In the film, Santi, a 10-year-old blind boy, lives with his poor father. He has his best friend, Vina, who protects him from bullying by a naughty Krai. Santi’s father gives him to a respectable monk, Luang Ta. Then, he can be taken care of by Luang Ta as well as Buddhist lessons. He can commit good karma in the hope for curing his eyesight. When they are grown up, Santi and Veena are lover. Krai feels jealous because he also likes Vina. Krai asks his parent to make the marriage proposal to Veena. While her parents agree, Vina decides to run away with Santi.
Saving Sally (Philippines)
Director: Avid Liongoren
Marty is an aspiring comic-book artist who is secretly in love with his best friend, Sally, the gadget inventor. Like every love story, there are complications: Sally has monsters for parents and an incredibly obnoxious boyfriend, while Marty has the innate ability to do nothing about everything despite his vivid fantasies of defending the love of his life from the big bad world.

 

 

Champa Meuanglao
Written by:  
Sally Pryor
Photos: Phoonsab Thevongsa
Originally Published in: Champa Meuanglao,  official Lao Airlines in-flight magazine, 2017 November-December Edition

Phongsavanh Group to Hold Share in Khonkaen Airlines

Khonkaen Airlines

Khonkaen Airlines could become a reality if a three-way joint venture between Phongsavanh Group of Laos, Mekong Group from Singapore, and the Khon Kaen Chamber of Commerce comes to fruition.

A memorandum of understanding has already been signed between the three groups for a study which will be undertaken to ascertain the feasibility of establishment of the airline. The study should be completed within the next six months.

While the airline will be registered in Thailand, according to the Khon Kaen Chamber of Commerce, Phongsavanh Group, which previously operated Lao Central Airlines, would provide the aircraft. Boeing 737-800 MAX and 777-300 are the likely candidates for passenger craft.

The Khon Kaen airport already sees approximately 1.5 million passengers each year, with a number of foreign airlines interested to make use of the city.

Future routes by Khonkaen Airlines are expected to include destinations in the Mekong region, as well as China and possibly other parts of Asia.

Source: Bangkok Post

OnePay Kicks Cash to the Curb in Laos

OnePay

Cash is king in Laos, but the crown might soon be toppled as OnePay sparks a revolution.

Walking the streets of Laos with a pocket full of cash can be cumbersome at best, and we’ve all experienced that moment of dismay when the ATM dispenses a massive stack of 20,000 kip notes! Well, that feeling could well be a thing of the past now that OnePay has arrived, and it’s kicking cash to the curb!

Banque Pour Le Commerce Exterieur Lao Public (BCEL) already revolutionized banking in Laos by launching its life-changing BCEL One mobile app, which allows customers to transfer funds between accounts, pay utility and phone bills, pay taxes, and more, right from their own mobile phone.

Now, the bank has done it again with the launch of OnePay, an application allowing users to pay anyone, anywhere, directly from their account by simply photographing a QR code. The cost of goods and services is then deducted directly from the user’s account, and deposited in the vendor’s account, eliminating the need for cash altogether. The system its fast and convenient, and best of all means your wallet will be a lot lighter.

Try it out – go bananas!

OnePay bananas

Source: Lao Post

Luang Prabang Film Festival Selects 10 Projects for 2017 Talent Lab

28 November 2017 — The Luang Prabang Film Festival (LPFF) has selected 10 projects from across Southeast Asia to participate in its 2017 Talent Lab, to be led by Tribeca Film Institute® (TFI). The Lab, which will focus on grant writing and project pitching, will be held during the opening weekend of the eighth annual festival, which will take place 8-13 December 2017.

LPFF is a yearly celebration of Southeast Asian cinema held in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage town in northern Laos that lacks a single working movie theater. With inclusivity as core to its mission, all festival events are free and open to the public.

The 10 selected projects, which are in various stages of production, come from six countries from the ASEAN region: Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand. The pool is equal parts documentary and narrative features, with five projects of both genres participating. Attendees taking part in the Talent Lab will include directors, writers, and producers behind the films.

The participating projects include:

  • Autobiography (Indonesia), represented by Makbul Mubarak (director) and Yulia Evina Bharas (producer)
  • Bai Bibyaon, Lady Warrior of the Lumad (Philippines), represented by Cenón Obispo Palomares (director, writer)
  • Cat Island (Philippines), represented by Siege Ledesma (director, writer) and Ang Alemberg (producer)
  • Doi Boy (Thailand), represented by Nontawat Numbenchapol (director, writer)
  • Going Straight (Philippines), represented by Kristoffer Brugada (director)
  • It Wasn’t an Accident (Myanmar), represented by Soe Moe Aung (director)
  • Luzviminda (Philippines), represented by Inshallah Montero (director)
  • Raising a Beast (Laos), represented by Xaisongkham Induangchanthy (director, writer) and Abigail Lazaro (producer)
  • Song of the Homeland (Thailand), represented by Preecha Srisuwan (director, cinematographer)
  • Wilderness (Malaysia), represented by Nadira Ilana (director, scriptwriter)

Building off the first iteration of this Talent Lab in 2016, this year’s Lab will be expanded to two days, and include a pitching workshop and pitch forum with feedback from a panel of film professionals. A jury will select one project from the forum to attend the TFI Network market at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival® (18-29 April 2018).

Hosted annually by TFI, the industry market gives filmmakers the opportunity to build connections with a wide range of industry insiders who can potentially help them advance their projects.

TFI will then mentor the winning filmmaker or filmmaking team through the completion of the project. All participants in the Talent Lab will also receive preferential consideration for any of TFI’s grants.

In addition to the opportunity to attend TFI Network, participating filmmakers will have the chance to win a financial award to produce their film. Through the Aurora Producing Award, Singapore-based media investment firm Aurora Media Holdings will contribute $10,000 to one film project.

Founded by Justin Deimen, Terence Kong, and Jeremy Sim, Aurora Media is one of Southeast Asia’s leading media and entertainment asset incubation, investment and management specialists.

“We’re looking at the Talent Lab to bring new voices and vision to the filmmaking landscape in the region,” says Deimen, Group Managing Partner at Aurora Media Holdings. “Stories that challenge perceptions, yet with strong commercial leanings and an artistic core always interest us. Our hope is that we can support and create frameworks that will develop and grow this ecosystem.”

To read more about the Luang Prabang Film Festival, visit www.lpfilmfest.org.
___________
All Luang Prabang Film Festival press enquiries:
Eliza Mott: eliza.mott@lpfilmfest.org / +856 (0)20 5970 1159

LPFF Background:
Founded in 2009, the Luang Prabang Film Festival (LPFF) is an annual celebration of Southeast Asian cinema held every December in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. LPFF is a not-for-profit project that fosters cross-cultural dialogue within the region and supports the burgeoning film industry in Laos. Throughout the year, LPFF organizes a range of cultural events and educational activities, from film screenings to workshops for amateur Lao filmmakers. LPFF also manages the Lao Filmmakers Fund, a publicly-generated granting system that helps local artists realize their film projects.

Villagers Use Crowdsourced Funding to Pave Their Own Road

Savannakhet Villagers Build Their Own Roads
Savannakhet Villagers Build Their Own Roads

Laos doesn’t have too many pristinely paved roads. While there are a few diamonds in the rough, many of the roads are not built to last and worse, poorly maintained. Lao road contracts are generally won by local construction companies with influential government connections that prioritize personal profits over public satisfaction. Public funding management for road construction is already constrained and inefficient.

Unhappy with the state of public roads, many citizens make their voices heard through the government hotline, most of us take to social media, while others just simply accept the status quo.

But for one group of frustrated villagers of Huahart in Savannakhet, accepting the way things were was not an option. This group banded their labor and savings totalling approximately 77,131,250 million kip (approximately USD 9300) to pave a road stretching 400m long in the district of Xayphouthong. This phenomenal communal effort will bear fruit in the form of a 13cm thick, 5.6m wide cement road. Construction started in mid-November and is slated to be complete by mid-January 2018.

Savannakhet Villagers Building Their Own Road
Savannakhet Villagers Building Their Own Road

This is not the first time that the denizens of Huahart had pooled together their resources. Not so long ago, they crowdsourced 52 million kip to create a 250m stretch of road (5.10m wide). This method of crowdsourced funding did not strictly mandate village members to contribute but was rather a community campaign driven by voluntarism and the shared desire to see better road conditions for all. Peasants and businessmen alike gave within their means to realize this common goal.

Source: Laos Update

 

Thai Border to Collect Toll from all Foreign Vehicles

Foreign vehicles entering Thailand by way of border will be expected to pay an ‘Asean road toll’ fee that the country plans to implement by the end of 2018.

Thailand plans to collect the toll from foreign motorists entering the country via border checkpoints due to increased road travel on the Southeast Asian mainland, which has caused frequent road maintenance and safety concerns.

Thailand’s Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning is currently conducting a study on toll collection, which is expected to be completed by year end. It will then take less than a year to gain state approval.

The toll will be applied to foreign four-wheel vehicles passing through 28 border checkpoints, from Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos.

Motorists will pay a 100-baht fee for an electronic tag which will be valid for five years, as well as a toll of 42 baht per trip.

Officials plan to have private companies invest in installing the toll collection system, with the entire project estimated to cost around 525 million THB (over 16 million USD) and employ up to 260 officials.

The office’s deputy chief insists that the tolls are necessary since the establishment of the Asean Economic Community has resulted in more vehicles entering Thailand. Thailand authorities have indicated that the country now has to bear higher costs in road maintenance and road accidents.

According to the Office of Transport and Traffic Policy and Planning office, there were 2.1 million trips made by car through 28 checkpoints last year. Most came from Laos (755,000), followed by Malaysia (596,000), Myanmar (495,000) and Cambodia (322,000).

Statistics show that the Thai government spends on average 15 billion THB on repairing and maintaining roads annually, with most of the damage resulting from heavy goods transportation. Road accidents also cost the country around 2.4 billion THB every year.

Source: The Nation

Laos’ Internet Among World’s Priciest

Laos Among World's Most Expensive Broadband Internet Prices
Laos Among World's Most Expensive Broadband Internet Prices

A study of broadband pricing in 196 countries reveals vast global disparities in the cost of getting online. And Laos ranks among Asia’s highest at USD 231.76, second only to Brunei.

Data over 3000+ individual broadband packages was gathered by BDRC Continental and compiled and analyzed by Cable.co.uk during an 8-week period up to October 12th, 2017.

Iran offers the world’s cheapest broadband, with an average cost of USD 5.37 per month. Burkina Faso is the most expensive, with an average package price of USD 954.54.

Six of the top ten cheapest countries in the world are found in the former USSR (Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS), including the Russian Federation itself.

Within Western Europe, Italy is the cheapest, with an average package price of USD 28.89 per month, followed by Germany (USD 34.07), Denmark (USD 35.90) and France (USD 36.34). The UK came in 8th cheapest out of 28, with an average package price of USD 40.52 per month.

In the Near East region, war-torn Syria came in cheapest with an average monthly price of USD 12.15 per month (and ranked fifth overall), with Saudi Arabia (USD 84.03), Bahrain (USD 104.93), Oman (USD 147.87), Qatar (USD 149.41) and the United Arab Emirates (USD 155.17) providing the most expensive connectivity in the region.

Iran is the cheapest in Asia (as well as the cheapest globally) with an average package price of USD 5.37 per month, followed by Nepal (USD 18.85) and Sri Lanka (USD 20.17) – all three ranked among the cheapest in the world. The Maldives (USD 86.08), Laos (USD 231.76) and Brunei (UD 267.33) provide the most expensive package price per month.

Mexico is the cheapest country in Central America with an average broadband package cost per month of USD 26.64, whereas Panama is the most expensive with an average package price of USD 112.77 per month.

In North America, Canada offers the cheapest broadband on average (USD 54.92), coming in 21 positions ahead of the United States globally (USD 66.17). Bermuda provides the most expensive packages in the region with an average price of USD 126.80 per month.

Saint-Martin offers the cheapest broadband in the Caribbean, with an average package price of USD 20.72 per month, with the British Virgin Islands (USD 146.05), Antigua and Barbuda (USD 153.78), Cayman Islands (USD 175.27) and Haiti (224.19) at the most expensive end, both regionally and globally.

Sub-Saharan Africa fared worst overall with almost all countries in the most expensive half of the table. Burkina Faso charges residential users a staggering USD 954.54 per month for their ADSL. Meanwhile Namibia (USD 432.86), Zimbabwe (USD 170.00) and Mali (USD 163.96) are among the 10 most expensive countries.

All 13 countries in Oceania were found in the most expensive half of the global table. Generally, larger landmasses such as Australia and New Zealand are cheaper than smaller islands in the region. Fiji, however, is actually the cheapest in Oceania with an average cost of USD 57.44. Vanuatu (USD 154.07), Cook Islands (USD 173.57) and Papua New Guinea (USD 597.20) are the most expensive in the region, with the latter coming in second-most expensive in the world.

In a previous reportCable.co.uk analysed over 63m broadband speed tests to rank nearly 200 countries by the average internet speed they offer. If you wish, you can couple figures from this research to identify countries that are, for example, both slow and expensive or cheap and fast.

Source: Cable.co

Tourists Complain of Construction Blocking Vang Vieng View

Vang-Vieng-Blocked-View

Lao news media has received complaints from both foreign and domestic tourists about a new multi-level building under construction on the far bank of the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng.

The building is over seven levels in height, and although incomplete, has already begun to obscure the beautiful view that has made Vang Vieng famous.

One Australian tourist commented, “I’ve been to Laos many times and always visited Vang Vieng. I brought my friends with me this trip and was saddened to see this new building blocking the view, which is normally spectacular.”

Vang Vieng is located in a valley, and is known for its breathtaking natural scenery. Clouds float across the karst formations in the distance, with the Nam Song River and lush green farmland in the foreground. It is this view that brings thousands of tourists to the small town each year.

Development, however, has clearly begun to encroach.

An employee of the National University of Laos visited Vang Vieng recently for a conference, and took the above photo of the building. He asked, “had the authorities that authorized this construction project forgotten about the beautiful scenery behind it?”

Source: Lao Post