The most prestigious film event in the world, the 71st Cannes Film Festival kicked off last week with a screening schedule of than 60 films, 21 of them competing in the main competition to take home the coveted the Palme d’Or.

This edition – the 71st –is an interesting one for Asian films, with the presentation of new works by masters like Jia Zhang-Ke, Lee Chang Dong and Koreeda Hirokazu in the main competition, while new faces like Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who won a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival for his 2015 film “Happy Hour” is in Cannes for the first time with his latest film “Asako I & II”.

Interestingly, the only Southeast Asian feature film screened in Cannes this year is “Ten Years Thailand”, a cinematic omnibus directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat and newcomer Chulayarnnon Siriphol. The film, which is being presented out of competition in the Special Screening section, had its world premiere on May 10.

Apichatpong, a previous Palme d’Or winner, is busy with his new art projects and decided not to attend the festival this time, but all the other directors were in to Cannes to attend the screening.

Apichatpong’s “Song of the City”

“I was asked by [director of photography] Teerawat Rujenatham to make an omnibus film for the project ‘Films For Free’,” says Wisit, who directed the episode “Catopia”. He’s back on the French Riviera for the first time in 17 years, having previously flown in to present his “Tears of the Black Tiger”, which was screened in Un Certain Regard in 2001.

“We wanted to make film about the present situation, but there was no theme. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang was initially also part of the project but later bowed out. Aditya, who knows the Hong Kong team behind the ‘Ten Years’ project, then joined and asked all of us what we thought about doing a ‘Ten Years Thailand’,” says Wisit.

“Ten Years” is a Hong Kong omnibus film made in 2015 by five young directors – Kwok Zune, Wong Fei-pang, Jevons Au, Chow Kwun-Wai and Ng Ka-leung. A dystopian movie, it shows how Hong Kong will look like in the next 10 years under the heavy-handed control of the Beijing government. The film was a major success in Hong Kong and won Best Picture from the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards. Understandably, the mainland Chinese government was not happy with the film and tried to censor it. The original Hong Kong film was also had a limited release in Thailand in 2017, and Golden Scene, the Hong Kong producer, has since exported the concept to Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. “Ten Years Japan” and “Ten Years Taiwan” are set for release in the near future.

“Because the Hong Kong project was so successful, the producers wanted to expand the concept to other Asian countries,” explains Aditya, who has masterminded its Thai version.

“They came to talk to me about it. The original Hong Kong film is about politics, which means that the Thai version will have to touch on politics. Thailand has endured political conflict for the last 10 years, so this is an interesting time to do a project like this. Cattleya Posrijaroen and Soros Sukhum were also involved with a political film project with Apichatpong and Wisit on board, so we just put together our resources.

“And because it’s an omnibus, I wanted to direct one of the segments as well as produce. Being a producer is kind of boring,” says Aditya.

“I missed the original film as it was in cinemas for a very short period,” adds Wisit, who brings his own interpretation of Thailand’s future to the screen.

“According to the producer, the concept is flexible. We don’t have to make films about what will happen in Thailand in the next 10 years but we can also talk about the effects of what is going on now on Thailand’s future.”

Catopia

Wisit’s “Catopia” tells the story of a Thailand run by catmen, who hunt and kill all the humans. The main protagonist could be last human in the world and he has to find ways to survive.

“The film is about witch-hunting, something I experienced myself on the Internet a few years back. Some people were not happy with what I posted on Facebook, and because of that, I lost some friends and was attacked on the social media,” Wisit recalls.

There were supposed to be five episodes of “Ten Years Thailand”, but for reasons unknown, the segment by Chookiat Sakveerakul is yet to be completed. Aditya and Cattleya brought in Chulyarnnon Siriphol, an artist and short filmmaker.

“We need the voice of the younger generation”, says Chulyarnnon.

“I wanted to make a film that reflects the severe censorship in Thai society but not in too straight a way. I use art to convey the idea,” says Chulyarnnon of his “Planetarium”, an experimental piece about scouts trained by the state to bring in citizens who think differently to the Ministry of VHS where they will be cured by strange lights that correct their attitude. “Art or creative media is an important tool to criticise what is going on in Thai society,” Chulyarnnon adds.

Aditya’s episode “Sunset” is a black-and-white film about officers who come to inspect an art gallery to make sure that what’s on show won’t cause conflict in society. “There was a real incident in which an art gallery was inspected by officers, and they took down some of the photos. I saw the photo that they took down, which is just a simple photo of a soldier walking in the art gallery. I found it very powerful so I turned it into the idea for my film,” he says. Aditya.

For “Song of the City”, Apichatpong filmed at the monument to Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat in his native Khon Kaen. Construction is going on all round and the area is packed with people. Some are talking, others sing a traditional Isaan song while yet others are selling a machine that can help you sleep better.

After Cannes, “Ten Years Thailand” will continue its journey on the festival circuit and should be shown in Thailand soon – the best audience to understand the film. The segment directed by Chookiat Sakveerakul may be added to the Thai version of the film.

The series is scheduled to premiere later this year on HBO Asia’s on-air, online and on-demand platforms.

“Grisse” is set in the mid-1800s during the colonial period of the Dutch East Indies. The series chronicles the story of a group of unlikely individuals who lead a rebellion against a brutal governor and suddenly find themselves in control of a Dutch garrison town called Grisse. The stories revolve around a number of unique characters, each from diverse backgrounds and creeds, who unite for the chance to determine their own destiny from the yoke of tyranny.

“We are delighted to once again bring together many talents from Asia to produce this adaptation of a historical tale of a small town in Indonesia. ‘Grisse’ promises to be action-packed with plot twists and interesting storylines that we hope will captivate our audiences in the region and beyond,” says Jonathan Spink, CEO of HBO Asia.

Developed and produced by HBO Asia together with Singapore-based Infinite Studios, “Grisse” will feature an ensemble cast of actors who are based in Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Europe. They include Adinia Wirasti (“Halfworlds Season 1”), Marthino Lio (“Sayang You Can Dance”), Michael Wahr (“City Homocide”), Edward Akbar (“Air Terjun Pengantin”), Jamie Aditya (“Sync or Swim”) and Toshiji Takeshima (HBO’s “True Blood”).

The series is directed by Mike Wiluan of “Buffalo Boys” fame.

The eight-episode series is based on the best-selling novel “Sacred Games” by Vikram Chandra and the eight hour-long episodes are directed by Vikramaditya Motwane.

A policeman, a criminal overlord, a Bollywood film star, politicians, cultists, spies, and terrorists – the lives of the privileged, the famous, the wretched, and the bloodthirsty interweave with cataclysmic consequences amid the chaos of modern-day Mumbai.

Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) is a seasoned and cynical Bombay police officer, who is summoned by an anonymous tip one morning, a voice which promises him an opportunity to capture the powerful Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), criminal overlord of the G-Company. As the stakes mount and Sartaj seeks knowledge of his prey, it becomes clear that the game the two players thought they were engaged in is in fact part of a much larger scenario, one that expands beyond their city.

A royally sponsored bathing rite will be held at 4pm on Tuesday at Wat Makutkasattriyaram, Pavilion 6, where the Abhidhamma prayer will be recited for him for the next seven days.

Dokdin, born Thamrong Kanyaman on October 25, 1924, received the Prince Narathip Praphanphong Award in 2007, an honour reserved for senior artists and writers.

He was named a National Artist in the performing arts (film) in 2012.

Dokdin directed and appeared in the 1964 movie “Nok Noi” (Little Bird), which won the Phra Surasawadee (Tukata Thong, or Golden Doll) Award.

Shot on 16mm film, as was the norm then, it became the first Thai movie to earn more than Bt1 million at the box office and brought its stars, Mit Chaibancha and Phetchara Chaowarat, national fame.

Based on the success of “Nok Noi”, Dokdin promoted his subsequent releases with the catchphrase “Lan laew ja”, meaning “one million already”.

And, sure enough, of the 32 films he directed or produced, 24 topped Bt1 million in earnings.

The Disney blockbuster, featuring a string of Marvel superheroes out to save the universe from powerful purple alien Thanos (Josh Brolin), has a cumulative three-week take of $548.1 million, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Returning to their Marvel roles in the film are Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.

Running a distant second with what normally would be a respectable $17.9 million was “Life of the Party,” a Melissa McCarthy comedy in its first weekend out.

McCarthy, who co-wrote the script with her husband, the movie’s director Ben Falcone, stars as a newly divorced mother who returns to college, where her daughter is in her senior year.

Another new film, “Breaking In,” a thriller starring Gabrielle Union, was third at $17.6 million.

Review website Rotten Tomatoes dismissed the film as a “rote, disposable action thriller” but praised Union’s performance as a mother fighting to save her children from criminal hostage-takers.

Rom-com “Overboard” slipped from second to fourth place with a box office take of $9.9 million in its second weekend in theaters. The Lionsgate remake, starring Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez, is about a struggling single mother who persuades a rich playboy with amnesia that they are married.

Number five at the box office was Paramount’s sci-fi horror film “A Quiet Place,” which stars actor-director John Krasinski and his real-life wife Emily Blunt as a couple silently struggling to protect their family from blind aliens that track their prey by sound. It made $6.5 million.

Rounding out the top ten were:

“I Feel Pretty” ($3.8 million)

“Rampage” ($3.5 million)

“Tully” ($2.2 million)

“Black Panther” ($2.1 million)

“RBG” ($1.2)

“Us & Them” started its theatrical run in China and is currently at the top of the Chinese box office chart having taken close to US$200 in just 10 days.

“At Netflix we believe great stories transcend borders. We are always in search for great content that touches the audience’s hearts and we are thrilled to bring a beautiful film like ‘Us & Them’ to the service.” says Rob Roy, Vice President, Content (Asia) at Netflix.

“Us & Them” started as a short story written by its Liu, who decided to bring the story to live on screen,

“Us & Them” follows the story of Lin Jianqing (Jing Boran) and Fang Xiaoxiao (Zhou Dongyu) spanning 10 years. The two first meet and fall in love on the train back home for Chinese New Year, struggle as a couple and eventually lead to break up.  Ten years later, they reunited on a flight home.

Written and directed by Sundance Grand Prize Winner and Emmy nominee Jennifer Fox, viewers in Thailand will be able to watch it on on HBO GO via AIS Play and AIS Playbox.

“The Tale” chronicles one woman’s powerful investigation into her own childhood memories, as she is forced to reexamine her first sexual experience – and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

It’s the first narrative feature from Fox, whose documentary films have earned international acclaim for their groundbreaking artistry and unflinching honesty. Based on Fox’s own life story, “The Tale” sees the filmmaker bravely pushing forward the boundaries of conventional storytelling, creating a dialogue between past and present to illustrate the interplay between memory and trauma.

“My goal was not to ask, ‘did this happen?’ because I always remembered it,” she explains. “It was, ‘how and why did it happen, and how and why did I spin it as a positive story to myself?’ There was a lightbulb moment when I was making another film about women all around the world, and it seemed that every other woman – regardless of class, culture or colour – had an abuse story to tell. Their stories just floored me, because they had a paradigm that looked like my story. Suddenly, I couldn’t see it as my own private little narrative and knew that it was time to investigate what happened in the open space of a fictional film.”

An accomplished documentarian working in New York, Jennifer (Dern) is completing her latest project about the lives of women around the world. She receives a series of phone calls from her mother, Nettie (Ellen Burstyn), who has found a short story Jennifer wrote at age 13, in which she describes various encounters with her riding instructor, Mrs G (Elizabeth Debicki), and her running coach, Bill (Jason Ritter), while at summer camp. Nettie is unnerved by the implications of her daughter’s writing, but Jennifer is nonplussed. She has always looked back with fondness on the time she spent with these two charismatic adults.

Egged on by Nettie and encouraged by her supportive fiance (Common), Jennifer yearns to know more and sets out on a journey, 30 years later, to find those people from her past – the children, now adults, who also attended the camp back then – and eventually the coaches themselves.

But the more she learns, the more her memories shift and the more questions she unearths. As Jennifer’s frustration mounts, she finds herself turning inward to get to the truth, imagining conversations with her 13yearold self (Isabelle Nelisse) and even Mrs G and Bill in an effort to understand how and why events occurred so long ago.

Tapping into a wave of nostalgia, the series premiere episode — released on May 2 — has more than 20 million views so far, the Google-owned company said.

“Cobra Kai” is a major victory for YouTube, which hoped to use the series both to draw new customers to its $10-a-month streaming service, YouTube Red, which was launched in 2015, and to position itself in the competitive original content market.

The first two episodes of the show were made available for free, to lure viewers.

Filming of season two, which again will feature the star of the original film, Ralph Macchio, will begin later this year. The episodes will go online in 2019.

The series — still set in the Los Angeles suburbs — is a comedy, and it’s told not from the perspective of Daniel LaRusso (Macchio), the bullied teen hero who learns karate from a martial arts master, but that of his nemesis Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka).

Of course, both Daniel and Johnny are well into middle age, and Johnny reopens the Cobra Kai karate dojo.

YouTube Red is now available in five countries — the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea — but YouTube says it will reach dozens more by year’s end.

In countries where YouTube Red is not available, episodes of “Cobra Kai” can be purchased directly on YouTube, or via Google Play.

“Solo: A Star Wars Story,” which gets its US release on May 25, tells the coming-of-age story of smuggler Han Solo before he was the galaxy’s most iconic and adored scoundrel.

The glittering array of stars in Hollywood Boulevard included cast members Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton and Paul Bettany.

“I just approached it as another adventure happening at a different time in Chewbacca’s life,” said Joonas Suotamo, the six foot 10 inch (2.08-meter) Finnish basketballer who took over the part from Peter Mayhew, starting with “The Force Awakens” (2015).

“It was interesting to approach this time when Chewbacca doesn’t know Han, he doesn’t know all these people, he’s in a really bad spot and he’s looking for a way out.”

The Lucasfilm grandees in attendance included “Solo” director Ron Howard, studio chief Kathleen Kennedy and long-time “Star Wars” writer Lawrence Kasdan and composer John Williams.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg as Hollywood’s A-list — “Star Wars” alumni or otherwise — turned out for the second in the “anthology” series of spin-off films that started in 2016 with “Rogue One.”

Among them was Mark Hamill, Ewan McGregor, Sofia Vergara, Alexandra Daddario, Benjamin Bratt and Johnny Knoxville.

The Disney-owned Lucasfilm delighted fans in April with a sneak peak of the first meeting between Alden Ehrenreich’s young Solo and Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian.

Scenes from the movie showed the pair’s encounter in a sleazy dive bar on a snowbound world, watched by a colorful menagerie of new alien characters.

There was also a glimpse of what looked like the pivotal moment in “Star Wars” lore when Han beats Lando in a card game to win the Millennium Falcon starship, a full-size version of which was contructed for the premiere.

From an African-American detective infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan to Kurdish female fighters battling jihadists, here are the movies that will compete for the top Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes film festival, which started Tuesday:

“Everybody Knows”

Iranian master Asghar Farhadi kicks off the festival with a psychological thriller about a family reunion going awry, featuring Spanish stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. While Farhadi, 45, won an Oscar and the Golden Bear at Berlin for his 2011 breakthrough film, “A Separation”, he is yet to take home the coveted Cannes prize.

“Black Klansman”

US director and activist Spike Lee’s drama is based on the real-life story of an African-American police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1978. John David Washington plays him with Adam Driver as his Jewish police partner. The film will open in the US on the first anniversary of a white supremacist march in Charlottesville where an antiracism activist was killed.

“Under the Silver Lake”

Four years after giving Cannes audiences nightmares with his thriller “It Follows”, David Robert Mitchell returns with another spine-chiller, this time about the mysterious murder of a billionaire.

“Dogman”

Italian director Matteo “Gomorra” Garrone’s new work is not for the faint-hearted. Dubbed an “urban Western”, the film is inspired by the gruesome murder by dog groomer and cocaine addict Pietro De Negri in the late 1980s.

“Three Faces”

Little is known about this portrait of three women by the Iranian dissident Jafar Panahi, who is banned from travel by Tehran. The festival and US director Oliver Stone have pleaded with the authorities to let the director, who has faced years of harassment and arrest, fly to Cannes to show his film.

“Leto”

Russia’s Kirill Serebrennikov is another director who may not be able to present his work at Cannes. Under house arrest over highly disputed allegations of embezzlement, his film focuses on Soviet rock star Viktor Tsoi and the birth of Russian underground music in the 1980s.

“At War”

As France grapples with rail strikes and student protests, French director Stephane Brize’s gritty drama about factory workers battling to keep their jobs may hit a timely nerve.

“Cold War”

Amazon Studios is pinning its hopes on this tender black-and-white period romance set among the members of a touring folk group in the Eastern Bloc in the 1950s from Oscar-winning Polish-British director Pawel Pawlikowski.

“The Image Book”

Cinema’s oldest and most enigmatic rebel, French-Swiss legend Jean-Luc Godard, has let little slip about his new film other than this enigmatic synopsis: “Nothing but silence, nothing but a revolutionary song, a story in five chapters like the five fingers of a hand.”

“Girls of the Sun”

Kurdish women fighters battling the Islamic State are at the centre of French actor-director Eva Husson’s new film. Iranian star Golshifteh Farahani plays Bahar, the leader of the Yazidi Sun Brigade, who hunts down the extremists who had earlier captured her.

“The Wild Pear Tree”

Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who won the Palme d’Or four years ago for “Winter Sleep”, is back with another Anatolian talkie, this time about a young provincial writer raging at his father.

“Ayka”

Kazakh Sergey Dvortsevoy – who won many fans and prizes for his 2009 debut “Tulpan” – was a late entry with his new docudrama about a young homeless single mother adrift in the post-Soviet Central Asian state.

“Capernaum”

Lebanese actress-turned-filmmaker Nadine Labaki’s third film is set in a Middle Eastern town. Her previous film “Where Do We Go Now?” premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section in 2010.

“Burning”

South Korean auteur Lee Changdong’s new mystery drama is drawn from a short story by Japanese master Haruki Murakami, “Barn Burning”, about a writer who becomes fascinated by a woman whose boyfriend burns barns. His first film in eight years, the cult director of “Oasis” and “Secret Sunshine” has an almost fanatical following.

“Knife + Heart”

French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis stars in the latest tale from Yann Gonzalez, who had a hit on the festival circuit with his quirky orgy drama, “You And The Night”, with Beatrice Dalle and former footballer Eric Cantona.

“Asako 1 & 2”

In this Japanese drama by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, a young woman meets her first love in Osaka. When he disappears without a trace, she moves on – until his perfect double shows up two years later.

“Shoplifters”

Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-Eda, a long-time sweetheart of the Cannes jury, returns with a tale of a family of small-time crooks who take in a child they find on the street.

“Yomeddine”

A Coptic leper and his orphaned apprentice leave the confines of their colony for the first time and embark on a journey across Egypt to search for what is left of their families.

“Happy As Lazzaro”

Rising star Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, already a prize winner at Cannes, is back with a time-travelling story which takes in the fascist 1930s.

“Sorry Angel”

The new film by Christophe Honore, the man behind the charming French musical “Love Songs”, is a gay love story when the Aids epidemic was at its height.

“Ash Is Purest White”

Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s new film is a story of “violent love” between a mobster and a dancer starring Zhao Tao and Liao Fan. It is a followup to his “Mountains May Depart”, which also competed for the Palme d’Or in 2015.