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https://www.nationthailand.com/lifestyle/art-culture/40024200

Govt told to focus on film to magnify Thailand’s global appeal

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023

Nongluck Ajanapanya

To turn Bangkok into a major location for making domestic and international films, the city needs clear and simple regulations for filmmakers to follow as well as skilled workers, several experts told a seminar on Friday.

Films have a uniquely powerful way to transmit content and messages with mass appeal globally, they agreed.

Consequently, films are an excellent medium for Bangkok to project Thailand’s cultural power at home and abroad, they told the seminar on how to transform the capital into “The City of Film”.

The seminar – organised by Nation Group for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) – drew advice from Senator Weerasak Kowsurat, United Cinema Co Ltd managing director Naruemon Lormthong, Royal Theatre executive Sala Chalermkrung, director and screenwriter Wisit Sasanatieng, and National Federation of Thai Film Associations secretary Pornchai Wongsriudomporn.

Senator Weerasak, also a former tourism and sports minister, compared the film industry to a locomotive, saying it can seamlessly transport all types of soft power to Thai and international audiences.

The film industry also has the potential to generate additional revenue from film production companies interested in using Bangkok as a location, while at the same time providing the capital with the opportunity to promote itself globally.

If the BMA wants to attract film producers, it needs clear and concise regulations for them to apply for permission to film locations in Bangkok – like buildings, public spaces, roads, or bridges – as well as competitive and transparent costs.

The BMA should reduce red tape by opening a one-stop service agency for filmmakers to get permission to film particular locations, Weerasak said.

All parties involved should also develop a clear plan for how to use the fees raised from filming in specific locations to develop the communities in their areas, the senator added.

Weerasak had a bit more advice for the BMA.

He said incentives like tax cuts or suspensions work better than providing grants to attract the private sector to support the Thai film industry. These incentives can be used to, for example, provide more time and space for Thai films to be shown in cinemas or assist in their promotion.

Film director Wisit said Thailand’s film industry has no shortage of creative talent. The problem lies in systems that make it difficult for the younger generation to enter the industry, he said.

The government should take a fresh look at films so that it can develop a clearer and more consistent strategy to support the industry.

“The Thai government should change its mindset and start seeing films as a powerful industry worthy of supportive programmes and subsidies on par with other industries,” the director said. “More importantly, we should have our own real film university to train skilled workers in order to upgrade the film industry from pre- to post-production,” he added.

Wisit had more advice for the government.

Give filmmakers more freedom of expression, he said. They can tell uncomfortable truths about Thailand while still making the world love the country, he added.

Pornchai agreed with Wisit that one of the most critical hurdles to attracting film production companies was talent.

Low wages, long hours and exhausting work make it difficult for people who work in the film industry to survive.

Every element of filmmaking necessitates expertise, Pornchai said.

If Bangkok wants to be a city of film, it requires talented workers in addition to the beautiful scenery, friendly people, advanced technology, and infrastructure it already has, he explained.

Naruemon called for the government to help Thai film makers reduce costs, particularly advertising expenses.

“Thai cinema requires a spark to become known. This means that Thai films require some supportive action to attract an audience,” she said.

She also said the cost of watching a movie in a theatre includes travel costs. The cost of a movie ticket is already too expensive for most Thais, she said.

The seminar is part of the Bangkok Film Festival 2023, which runs from today until Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Cultural Center. It is hosted by the BMA.

The goal is to promote Bangkok as a filmmaking city.

Last year, the government launched its so-called “5 Fs soft power” campaign. The campaign promotes five major Thai cultural products – food, film, fashion, fighting, and festivals – internationally.

In response to this initiative, government ministries, agencies, and the BMA are taking steps – some big, some small – to promote Thailand’s power around the globe.

Nongluck Ajanapanya

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https://www.nationthailand.com/lifestyle/art-culture/40024188

Busy Yaowarat Road decks up for Chinese New Year

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023

Huge crowds of Thai people of Chinese descent went to Yaowarat Road in Bangkok on Friday to purchase goods in preparation for the Chinese New Year festival at the weekend.

In Chinese tradition, today — two days before the New Year — is called “the day for shopping”. Thai-Chinese people purchase foods, fruits and other offerings associated with the festival.

People pray to Chinese gods and commemorate their ancestors on Saturday, which is called “the day to pay respect”.

Chinese New Year Day, which falls on Sunday, is also called “the day for visiting” when people reunite with their relatives, greet each other and travel outdoors.

Young people usually hand out presents, including four oranges, to seniors on Chinese New Year Day. The seniors usually hand out two oranges and red envelops called “ang pao” to young people in return.

Meanwhile, a special event is being held to mark Chinese New Year festival on Yaowarat Road until February 15.

The event from 6pm to midnight features light decorations along the road and the installation of a 1.8-metre rabbit statue at the Royal Jubilee Gate to mark the Year of the Rabbit in Chinese astrology.

Thailand and China are marking the 48th anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand is expecting a steady influx of visitors from China.

Related stories:

• Prayut expects Thailand to become top destination for Chinese group tours now that restrictions are lifted
• Incense stick innovation aims to cut cancer risk at Chinese New Year
• Icon Siam marks Chinese New Year with Thailand’s longest lantern dragon

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https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/lifestyle/art-culture/40024173

Frederic Chopin – poet of Polish freedom

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023

One hundred sixty years ago, in September 1863, during the January Uprising, the Russians demolished the Zamoyski Palace in Warsaw, throwing the piano once played by Fryderyk Chopin out of the building’s window. The moment made history.

Fryderyk Chopin’s music aroused patriotic sentiments even before his scores left the printing presses. Even back when he was known only as the son of the proprietor of one of Warsaw’s finest boarding houses, he would perform for his colleagues in the evenings, improvising on historical themes. Later, the guests at his salon in Paris could listen to the entire poems, only fragments of which he poured onto paper.

The nationalist, patriotic feature of his work was apparent not only to Poles. It was recognised already by Robert Schumann, the first international reviewer of the young Chopin (it was he who, with regard to  Chopin’s Variations pp. 2, wrote ‘Hats off gentlemen, a genius!’).

In his review of Chopin’s Piano Concertos, he characterises the artist alluding to the November Uprising: “So he stood, supplied with the deepest knowledge of his art, aware of his power and hence armed with courage, when in 1830 the mighty voice of the peoples rang out in the west. Hundreds of young men awaited that moment, but Chopin was the first on the ramparts […]. Fate had prepared something more for the meeting of a new time and new relations: it distinguished Chopin and made him interesting through his expressive, original Polish nationality. […] if the autocratic monarch [the tsar] knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin’s works, in the simple melodies of the mazurkas, he would ban them. Chopin’s compositions are cannons buried in flowers.”

The echoes of Kurpiński’s insurrectionist song Litwinka in op. 49 or the ‘heroic’ developments of the polonaise in op. 53 were evident immediately upon listening.

Chopin left ample evidence of his patriotic commitment. The outbreak of the 1830 uprising became a watershed moment in his musical style. When his friends, nigh forcibly, stopped him from returning home and taking up arms, he wrote that he ‘thunderbolts on the piano’ at night. He began to introduce dark tones, violent contrasts and numerous chromatic runs that break down the classical simplicity of the major-minor style.

According to his family accounts, it was also then that he wrote the Etude in C Minor, known as the ‘Revolutionary’, the violent Scherzo in B minor and even a sketch of the Prelude in D Minor, published many years later in the op. 28 cycle referring to Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Chopin was well versed in the geopolitical situation, as best evidenced by a letter to Julian Fontana from April 1848, in which he writes, among other things: ‘Our people are gathering in Poznań. Czartoryski was the first to go there, but God only knows what direction events will take […] horrible things are likely to happen, but when it all ends, there will be a great, big Poland; in a word: Poland.”

When in September 1863 (14 years after the composer’s death), Russian troops demolished the Zamoyski Palace in Warsaw in retaliation for the January Uprising participants’ attempt to assassinate the governor Theodor Berg, surely nobody realised that the destruction of the piano would take on a symbolic dimension.

Cyprian Kamil Norwid, who met Chopin in Paris as a youth, immortalised this moment, raising it in his famous poem Chopin’s Piano to the status of a clash of cultures and value systems. It was an important act of including Chopin’s work in the discourse of the independence struggle, perhaps most clearly demonstrated by Ignacy Jan Paderewski in his famous speech in Lviv in 1910, on the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Indeed, the address opened the path of political activity for the future Polish prime minister: “Chopin embodies everything we have been forbidden: the colourful kontushes, the gold-lined belts, […] the clank of the nobles’ sabres and the scythes or our peasant’s, the moan of the wounded chest, the rebellion of the shackled spirit, […] the slavery’s pain, the freedom’s mourning, the tyrants’ curse and the victory’s joyful song.” It is clear why the German occupation authorities banned his songs during World War II.

In 21st-century Poland, Chopin’s music still holds a special place. Millions of Poles follow the International Chopin Piano Competition every five years as Warsaw fills with the composer’s music, from the philharmonic hall to the taxis.

Today we also understand the extraordinary universalism of Chopin’s work, whose genius finds a way into the hearts of people from all over the world and helps to build international communities of those who admire beauty and truth.

Artur Szklener

Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

*The text is simultaneously published in the Polish monthly “Wszystko Co Najważniejsze” as part of a project carried out with the Institute of National Remembrance and the Polish National Foundation.