ASEAN Film Festival to make debut in Thailand

BANGKOK, August 19 (TNA) - Thailand, through the Ministry of Culture, will organize, later this month, the first ASEAN Film Festival, where 11 movies from 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be screened to let people learn about lifestyles, attitudes and cultures in the region. Thai Culture Minister Vira Rojpojchanarat announced on Wednesday that the Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival 2015 was set in Bangkok and other provinces from August 26 to September 20. Vira told journalists that Thailand has planned the festival, as the Kingdom is the 5th best movie producer in Asia, after Japan, China, South Korea and India, expressing his hope that the festival should lead to an ASEAN film contest and promote other roles of Thailand in the future. Meanwhile, Suwannee Chinchiawcharn, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Federation of Motion Pictures and Contents Associations, said that, during the nearly-one-month festival, award-winning films in ASEAN will be screened, including Cambodia's "The Last Reel", which won the "Spirit of Asia 2014" award for reflecting the youngsters' post-war attitudes on society. Suwannee revealed that Thai films selected to join in the festival are Mart Phayak and Latitude 6, which present the beautiful lifestyles of people in the violence-plagued Thai Far South, with their screening set at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld in Bangkok from August 27 to 30, in Chiang Mai Province in the Thai North from September 3 to 6, in Khon Kaen Province in the Thai Northeast from September 10 to 13 and in Surat Thani Province in the Thai South from September 17 to 20. (TNA)