Bangkok International Film Festival

[asiawatcher]

2010 has seen the postponement of the annual event. Cited were politics and the indictment of the former TAT Governor Juthamas Siriwan and her daughter for the receipt of more than USD1.8M into their accounts from convicted former Festival Managers, Gerald and Patricia Green. The Greens sentencing has again been postponed (the 4th since January) and the DSI has been handed the case against Siriwan to investigate prosecution or not.

The last two festivals have seen a downturn in both management expertise and success due to limitation of budgets - less than 10% of the heady days of the Greens and Siriwan. Siriwan was appointed TAT Governor by former convicted felon ex Prime Minister Shinawatra.

Sadly, Thailand was being showcased by this festival despite the waning support through mismanagement and alleged corruption but right now would be the ideal time to have an International Film Festival again. Films, unlike TV Commercial campaigns, showcase a country for the life of a film usually around 7 years. No advertising campaign can ever be as effective but the Ministry of Tourism and TAT have not been able to confirm if next year will see the re-introuduction or simply a demise. The festivals web URL is available for sale thus one would surmise the deletion from the Thai calendar.

The Phuket fFilm Festival has just wrapped and by all accounts was disorganised and poor quality. Another festival is due August called the Bangkok Indie Fest from successful entrepreneurs who have run a similar festival in Cambodia 'against all odds', thus may garner more interest for Thailand within the film community.

A press release this month has stated the Government is 'assessing' the use of Tax Incentives (Tax rebates) to fall into line with international competition but as Thailand always drags legislation of 'giving back' anything, it is unlikely this will come into being.

With the recent politics of Thai internal destruction, civil unrest, and the inability of Thailand to obtain a 'completion bond' for production, it is unlikely we will see any 'stars' in Thailand in the near future.

So the arts community, successful filmmakers and the recent coveted Cannes award, the Palm d'Or being won by a Thai, will continue to suffer. Will Thailand ever evolve as the incredible film community it started in 1897 as one of the first in the game? I hope so.

[scott_cos]

Pardon us but you are a bit misinformed on a couple of matters regarding the Phuket Film Festival. #1, The Festival has not yet wrapped. We have a full day of movies on Saturday including two we recently put back in the lineup, "Do Elephants Pray" a UK movie and the US/Cambodian "Who Killed Chea Vichea?"

This evening (Friday 11 June), we have a major star studded affair as "Bitter/Sweet" has its Thailand premiere with Thai film stars attending and major reception after movie screening.

And on Sunday, our closing film is the World Premiere of Thai director Yuthlert Sipapak' s "Friday Killer" at the super beach bar/club StereoLab on Surin Beach.

While we would agree we were plagued with organizational problems - the downfall was lack of folks in the movie theaters which we can not explain as Festival line-up of films was top-notch as were most Festival VIPs attending. Had we had bigger stars/directors attending, organizers would have been really embarrassed at Phuket community's lack of support for the Festival.

And of course we were underfunded. We had a business plan for the Festival to "break-even" - we are not even close.

Of course that is speaking on a broad basis - we have met and been assisted by some great folk on the island and we appreciate greatly their support and encouragement. Thank you all very much!

Director Darnell Marin ("Cadillac Records") said it best: "We have to fail at our dreams before we can succeed, or we haven't dreamed big enough. This festival could totally work. In the end, the community won't care about the things that went wrong."

But one thing, we achieved on a budget of about 4 million baht what TAT spent millions of $'s on. The difference, no graft, no corruption on this end, no hiring of cronies and no pocketing of any Festival funds. This was a project of love - lost love as it may now seem.

[webfact]

Moved to Bangkok Forum

[asiawatcher]

Pardon us but you are a bit misinformed on a couple of matters regarding the Phuket Film Festival. #1, The Festival has not yet wrapped. We have a full day of movies on Saturday including two we recently put back in the lineup, "Do Elephants Pray" a UK movie and the US/Cambodian "Who Killed Chea Vichea?"

This evening (Friday 11 June), we have a major star studded affair as "Bitter/Sweet" has its Thailand premiere with Thai film stars attending and major reception after movie screening.

And on Sunday, our closing film is the World Premiere of Thai director Yuthlert Sipapak' s "Friday Killer" at the super beach bar/club StereoLab on Surin Beach.

While we would agree we were plagued with organizational problems - the downfall was lack of folks in the movie theaters which we can not explain as Festival line-up of films was top-notch as were most Festival VIPs attending. Had we had bigger stars/directors attending, organizers would have been really embarrassed at Phuket community's lack of support for the Festival.

And of course we were underfunded. We had a business plan for the Festival to "break-even" - we are not even close.

Of course that is speaking on a broad basis - we have met and been assisted by some great folk on the island and we appreciate greatly their support and encouragement. Thank you all very much!

Director Darnell Marin ("Cadillac Records") said it best: "We have to fail at our dreams before we can succeed, or we haven't dreamed big enough. This festival could totally work. In the end, the community won't care about the things that went wrong."

But one thing, we achieved on a budget of about 4 million baht what TAT spent millions of s on. The difference, no graft, no corruption on this end, no hiring of cronies and no pocketing of any Festival funds. This was a project of love - lost love as it may now seem.

Frankly I think you had it in the wrong venue and location! Phuket does not enjoy a reputation the TAT would have many believe, in fact quite the opposite.

The last festival just shown in Bangkok (IndieFest) had more than 4 times your submissions and on less than 10% of your budget, but the (Thai) press we spoke to were none too kind on your organisational skills in Phuket and yes, numbers down meant you were given the thumbs down all over. Given you were mainstreaming hoping to attract heads of notice, and IndieFest were the opposite (didn't care), members of this chat who were on the ground in Phuket walked, very disgruntled, having spent the money to be there and did not see anything to make them repeat their attendances. Word of mouth, look at JC and the 12 apostles and look what happened with religion!! Once you give a thoroughbred a bad name you may as well put it out to pasture! Good luck if you try again but I would not rely on any local sponsorship. From what I have been told this is like extracting teeth!

[sabaijai]

Bangkok IndieFest +1

BIFF started out promisingly but once former TAT governor Juthamas got involved it went off the rails. We'll see how it goes this year.

[asiawatcher]

Bangkok IndieFest +1

BIFF started out promisingly but once former TAT governor Juthamas got involved it went off the rails. We'll see how it goes this year.

Yes the BIFF started well and the international festival organisers were intelligent and resourceful. Then as said, the Thai authorities stepped up saying 'ok, we can do this now' and the whole thing went downhill from there. They had no connections to attract stars and the Kantana group (Kaljareuk) who took over had never run anything of this nature. But they did try to work through some lawyers in LA but did not maintain contact, and the lawyers who had the capability to perform were not engaged when it came time to 'pay'.

I strongly believe in the necessity of a Film Festival to show case Thailand and attract both tourists and filmmakers and I have been in touch with the last overseer (Craig Prater) who said the festival complete with international hi-profile guests, can de reset to operate for around USD350,000 a bit over the existing budget of Baht 10M. The Juthamas Siriwan budget was up close to 200M Baht but as has now been exposed, not a lot went back into the actual festival.

I think this year will be the death knell of the BIFF though and sadly may take a few more years before some other entrepreneurs do something to enhance Thailand's failing exposure.