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The World Film Festival of Bangkok wrapped up its comeback 15th edition on Sunday with an efficient prize ceremony and double-bill screenings of Belgian film “Close” and local title “Arnold Is a Model Student.”

The festival ran Dec. 2-11, 2022, after a five-year hiatus, seemingly caused by a lack of funding and political will, and the death this year of its dynamic founder Kriengsak ‘Victor’ Silakong. Artistic directing duties were taken over by local producer and film critic Donsaron ‘Don’ Kovitvanitcha.

In what it said was a unanimous decision, the jury gave its top prize to “Klondike,” Mayna Er Gorbach’s anti-war drama from Ukraine.

The best director prize, worth THB100,000 was awarded to Serbia’s Dusan Zoric and Matija Gluscevic co-directors of “Have You Seen This Woman?”.

A grand jury prize was awarded to Ananta Thitanat, whose documentary “Scala” charted the demise of Bangkok’s last stand-alone art cinema, caused...

The annual film event in Laos that was for the past 12 years known as the Luang Prabang Film Festival has given up its name in order to go ahead with next month’s edition.

“Organizers have recently acquiesced to a name change in order to continue to produce this year’s event, scheduled for Dec. 8- 11, and will move forward using only the iconic blue chair to identify the festival,” they said in a statement that also unveiled the festival’s film selection.

Contacted by Variety, organizers had no additional comment beyond their published statement.

The festival has been operated on a non-profit basis with the backing of private sector and local government sponsors in the Unesco Heritage town of Luang Prabang. It has supported the Laos local film industry, operated talent development workshops and provided free-of-charge screenings of recent Southeast Asian films to the Laos public.

The 2022 selection includes...

In the heyday of big-screen entertainment Thailand was home to some 700 standalone single-screen theaters. By 2019 only one of them survived in Bangkok. It was the Scala, a thousand-seat cinema that opened its doors on New Year’s Eve 1969 and closed them 51 years later, in July 2020, when it was shut, razed to the ground, and turned into a shopping mall. Scala, Ananta Thitanat’s heart-shaking documentary, is a chronicle of its demolition, but also a tribute to the mystical power it held over generations of patrons, told by the people who worked there and were eventually hired to dismantle it. Few films since Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn have captured the magic of a movie theater with the same awe Thitanat pours into Scala. Her feature debut, truly one of the finest premieres at this year’s Berlinale, is an engrossing obituary that feels joltingly alive in its struggle to rescue a place from oblivion,...

First two features are Berlinale Forum titles ’Memoryland’ and documentary ’Scala’.

Leading Thai production outfit Diversion is expanding into sales with a debut slate at the EFM headed by Kim Quy Bui’s Memoryland and Ananta Thitanat’s documentary Scala, both playing in the Forum at the Berlinale.

Memoryland, which explores death and spirituality in contemporary Vietnam, premiered in Busan’s New Currents competition, while Scala is an ode to Bangkok’s last standalone cinema, which was demolished last year.

The line-up also includes feature documentary Scene Unseen by the late Singaporean director Abdul Nizam and friends, which premiered at...

First two tiitles are Berlinale Forum titles Memoryland and feature doc Scala.

Leading Thai production outfit Diversion is expanding into sales with a debut slate at the EFM headed by Kim Quy Bui’s Memoryland and Ananta Thitanat’s documentary Scala, both playing in the Forum at the Berlinale.

Memoryland, which explores death and spirituality in contemporary Vietnam, premiered in Busan’s New Currents competition, while Scala is an ode to Bangkok’s last standalone cinema, which was demolished last year.

The line-up also includes feature documentary Scene Unseen by the late Singaporean director Abdul Nizam and friends, which premiered...

Line-up includes projects from producers Winnie Tsang and Stanley Kwan and an Israel-Italy co-production.

New projects from producers Winnie Tsang and Stanley Kwan and an Israel-Italy co-production are among the 15 work-in-progress projects selected for the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum’s (Haf) 20th anniversary edition

Among the selection, Hkiff industry director Jacob Wong highlighted two projects: Borrowed Time and The Sunny Side Of The Street. “They are the first projects to have progressed through the Haf eco-system, from Film Lab to In-development projects, and now onto Wip,” he said.

Both won script consultation service awards at Haf Film Lab in...

Forum adds 10 more titles; Classics includes Godard, Pasolini, Russell.

New films from Jonathan Perel and Max Linz are among 17 new titles added to the Forum section at the 2022 Berlinale; while the Classics section has programmed seven digitally restored titles ahead of next month’s festival.

Argentinian filmmaker Jonathan Perel will participate with the world premiere of documentary Camouflage, about a writer who embodies a man with an obsession with Argentina’s biggest military unit.

Perel’s previous films include Berlinale 2020 title Corporate Responsibility.

German director Linz is in the festival with the world premiere of his new film L’Etat Et Moi,...