The 11th edition of the Little Big Films Project returns next Thursday with four movies that narrate the strength of the human heart.
First launched in 1999, the project was immediately hailed as the best platform for independent films in the country. In those days chances to catch indie productions were few and far between and film lovers were usually forced to turn to bootleg DVDs and VCDs.
That first event almost 20 years opened with a bang with a programme that included the Coen brothers’ hit The Big Lebowski”, Chinese movie “Xiu Xiu The Sent Down Girl” directed by actress Joan Cheng and “The Red Violin by Francois Girard.
More than eight LBP projects were organised over the next six years, offering Bangkok cinephiles such classics as “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, Swedish black comedy “Song From the Second Floor”, “City of Gods” and “Japanese Story”.
By then though, more independent films were going on general, if limited release, and the project came to a halt.
And now LBP is back. It opens next Thursday with “After the Storm,” the latest film from acclaimed director Hirokazu Koreeda. Koreeda was first introduced to Thai film lovers through his award-winning movie “Nobody Knows”, which enjoyed a Bangkok run of more than a month. Since then we’ve seen his “Air Doll,” “Like Father, Like Son” and “Our Little Sisters.”
“After The Storm” tells the story of Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), a successful writer who won a literary award 15 years earlier but who has written nothing since. He works as a private detective for a living and pays alimony for his son Shingo (Taiyo Yoshizawa) who lives with his ex-wife Kyoko (Yoko Maki). Circumstances mean that all three are his mother Yoshiko’s apartment when a typhoon hits. Forced to stay together all night, the family finally gets round to talking and finding ways to move with their lives.
The second film, opening on September 29, is “About Ray”. It stars young actress Elle Fanning as a woman undergoing gender-changing surgery and her attempts to make her mother Maggie (Naomi Watts) and her grandmother Dolly (Susan Sarandon) understand and accept who she is.
The third film, “Under the Shadow”, is the debut feature of Iranian director Babak Anvari. A horror film about a mysterious evil, it won critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival where it had audiences grasping their armrests in terror. Set in Tehran during the Iraq-Iran war, it’s centred on Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi, who are forced to stay alone in their home when Shideh’s husband is drafted and sent to the frontline. Not long after their apartment is hit by a missile, a neighbor dies mysteriously and Dorsa’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.    Fearing that the missile might have brought with it Djinn – malevolent Middle-Eastern spirits that travel on the wind – Shideh strives to protect Dorsa from possession by confronting the evil forces. It opens on October 13.
The LBP closes on October 27 with the French film “From The Land of the Moon”, which was selected for the main competition at the 2016 Cannes International Film Festival. Adapted from Milena Agus’ novel “Mal de Pierres” and set after World War II, it stars Marion Cotillard as Gabrielle, a passionate, free-spirited woman in a loveless arranged marriage who falls for a veteran returning from the Indochina battlefield.
All four films will be screened at House RCA, Lido, Paragon Cineplex, SF World Cinema and Esplanade Ratchada.