Admission is free.

“Genghis Khan” will be screened at 1pm. The film, based on the life of the legendary Mongol conqueror, was made in 1950 and dramatises the daring exploits of Temujin, the 12th-century Mongol prince. Following a land rights feud, the young prince is unaware of tribal leader Burchou’s plans to massacre other chiefs during a feast. Though the prince makes a narrow escape, when he returns home he finds his village destroyed. Driven by the desire to seek revenge, Temujin competes in the “Man of Men” contest and plots a scheme to expose Burchou’s treachery while falling in love with the enemy commander’s daughter. His path to become The Great Conqueror is strewn with blood and obstacles.

“Genghis Khan” premiered in 1952 at the Venice International Film Festival. The prints were thought to have been lost, but the international version made in the US were accidentally discovered. This version has an English track overlay on the original Tagalog track. A restoration process followed and the film was invited for screening in Venice again in 2012.

The film is dubbed in English with English and Thai subtitles.

Director Manuel Conde started his film career in “Mahiwagang Biyolin” in 1935. Later, he founded his own film company, Manuel Conde Pictures, in 1947. In 1950, he directed and starred in “Genghis Khan”, which was the first Filipino film to gain international recognition. Its success became a trail-blazer for the Filipino movie industry.

The second film to be shown is “Moon Over Malaya”, which tells the story of Ngok Ming, an idealistic young man who wants to develop the educational standards in Malaya. He approaches a wealthy Chinese businessman to raise funds for building schools and meets the young heiress, Cho-lin. After a whirlwind romance, they get married. However, Ngok Ming struggles to balance his passion for education and performing his duty of managing the family business. As conflicts between the characters escalate, Ngok Ming and Cho-lin make decisions that change their lives forever.

For more information, please call (02) 482 2013 – 14 or visit www.facebook.com/thaifilmarchivepage

The film was made in 1957 and is one of the “Nanyang Trilogy”. The film is in Cantonese with English and Thai subtitles and tells the story of overseas Chinese in the Malayan Peninsula.

According to sgfilmlocations.com, The Nanyang Trilogy started when film director Chan Man and his colleague Chun Kim, general manager and film director at Kong Ngee in Hong Kong, sought opportunities in Southeast Asia so they shot a series of films there. In 1956, a compact location-filming crew of about 10 members, including Chun Kim, Chan Man, scriptwriter/director Chor Yuen, actors Patrick Tse Yin and Patsy Kar Ling, arrived in Singapore with three film scripts tentatively titled “Blood Stains the Valley of Love” (released with the same title in 1957), “Quest for a Long-Lost Husband”, and “Moon Over Malaya”. These three films were labelled collectively as the Nanyang Trilogy and were all set in Malaya and Singapore and would feature film locations from major cities and townships across the Malayan Peninsula — Singapore, Johor Bahru, Malacca, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh and Taiping.

The challenge, which began on Thursday, is an original production by Sunway to promote Sunway City Kuala Lumpur as the region’s premier tourist destination aligned with the nation’s tourism ambition.

The production is the first reality series that features Asia’s hottest social media superstars and has garnered more than 15 million viewers across Asia. All iflix viewers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand can catch the event on iflixFREE and iflixVIP.

Hosted by Malaysia’s top influencer, Jenn Chia, the event features Asia’s top 10 social media superstars: Thailand’s SorDor Style, Malaysia’s Jaa Suzuran, the Philippines’ Medyo Maldito, India’s RJ Abhinav, Indonesia’s Michelle Joan, Singapore’s Matthew Stewart, Taiwan’s Ironbull, China’s Gong Yi, South Korea’s Hong Young Gee and United Arab Emirates’ Hadia Ghaleb in a battle across Sunway City Kuala Lumpur to be crowned The Amazing Sunway City Challenge champion.

They will be exploring Sunway City’s attractions and taking on challenging activities. Some of the most daunting tasks include a bungee jump in Sunway Lagoon, team mission in Sunway Pyramid’s ice skating rink and hurtling down the world’s largest water ride, Vuvuzela.

Comprising theme park Sunway Lagoon, Malaysia’s first themed mall Sunway Pyramid and a collection of hotels, Sunway City Kuala Lumpur reportedly welcomes 42 million visits yearly.

“Our commitment is to offer and deliver our customers a collection of premium content, specifically for the younger demographic. Sunway’s boundary-pushing venture into original programming, featuring the region’s most celebrated social influencers, is a welcome addition to iflix’s ever-growing free short form offering for the mobile-first generation,” said Craig Galvin, iflix Global Head of Content.

“We took a different approach in our branding exercise for Sunway City Kuala Lumpur when we decided to produce this reality show. We are proud that this became a popular show in our social media and became viral. We look forward to expanding the reach of our original production to iflix’s ardent viewers in this region,” said Jane Poh, Sunway group brand marketing and communications senior general manager.

The Bangkok Asean Film Festival rolled to an end earlier this week, with rookie director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng picking up yet another award for his debut oeuvre, “Kraben Rahu” (“Manta Ray”), which became the first Thai movie to win Best Film in the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of last year’s Venice International Film Fesitval.

“Manta Ray” was recognised with the Best Asean Film award, earning Phuttiphong a $10,000 cash prize and a trophy. “Balangiga: Howling Wilderness” from the Philippines won the Jury Prize with $5,000 in cash and a trophy and the Vietnamese film “The Third Wife” won the Special Mention award with $2,000 and a trophy.

“Mantar Ray” tells the story of a local fisherman (Wanlop Rungkumjad) who discovers an injured man (Aphisit Hama) in the forest. The fisherman rescues the stranger, who doesn’t speak a single word. He later calls the stranger “Thongchai” after Thai superstar Thongchai “Bird” McIntyre. One day, the fisherman mysteriously disappears from Thongchai’s life. Thongchai meets Saijai (Rasmee Wayrana), the fisherman’s ex-wife, and bit by bit, Thongchai begins to take over his friend’s life.

Minister of Culture Vira Rojpojchanarat presided over the closing ceremony and presented the awards to winners during the closing ceremony at Sky Lobby SF World Cinema, CentralWorld. The closing ceremony was attended by Permanent Secretary for Culture Kitsayapong Siri, executives of the Ministry of Culture, the National Board of Film and Video, the National Federation of Motion Pictures and Contents Associations, the festival’s committee, the festival jury members, and representatives from film agencies of 9 Aean member nations, as well as Thai and international celebrities.

The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Garin Nugroho, a veteran filmmaker from Indonesia.

Referring to agreement made at the 8th meeting of ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Arts and Culture on October 24, 2018, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, at which the year 2019 was designated as Asean Culture Year, Vira noted that the Thai Culture Ministry had been active in promoting cooperation among film industry professionals in Asean as well as expanding Southeast Asian films to the international market. “The Ministry is pushing the Thai film and video industry to become the production and distribution centre, or hub of Asean, in accordance with the third phase of the Strategic Development Plan for Film and Video Industry (2017-2021), which focuses on using the cultural dimension to promote international relations, generate new sources of income for the country, and establish Bangkok as a film centre of Southeast Asia,” the minister told the audience.

The Thai government, through the Ministry of Culture and in co-operation with the National Federation of Motion Pictures and Contents Associations and other agencies, hosted the 5th Bangkok Asean Film Festival 2019 from July 3-8 at SF World Cinema, CentralWorld, and Paragon Cineplex, Siam Paragon.

The festival screened films selected by embassies or film agencies of the 10 Asean member nations, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. This year the programme was extended to include titles from China, South Korea and Japan and featured 30 films from 13 countries. Another highlight was a program called Roundtable, a talk and workshop series organised by Purin Pictures Foundation featuring sessions with leading filmmakers from the region, held at Alliance Francaise Bangkok from July 4 to 7.

Gwangju Police Station said the actor was arrested without a warrant at around 10.50pm at his home in Gwangju, a city southeast of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province.

According to police, Kang is suspected of raping a staff member of a production company and molesting another at his home on Tuesday evening. Kang and the two women had gone to the actor’s place for a second round of drinks after a company dinner.

One of the two women sent a text message to a friend at 9.41pm., saying she was “trapped at (Kang Ji-hwan’s) place”. After receiving a report from the woman’s friend, police went to Kang’s home, separated Kang from the women and arrested him.

During questioning, Kang told police he had been drunk and has no memory of the incident. “I remember drinking but have no memory of what happened next. When I woke up, I found myself in the room where (the staff) had fallen asleep,” the police quoted him as saying.

Citizens expressed outrage when it emerged that actress Lee Yeol-eum had dived to the bottom of a pond in a national park and scooped up three giant clams, an endangered species, which were then cooked on the show.

Giant clams are protected by the Wild Animal Reservation and Protection Act and cannot legally be hunted or traded.

Violators can be jailed for up to four years and/or fined up to Bt40,000.

The TV show’s producer, SBS Broadcasting, issued a statement on Friday expressing deep regret for disrespecting park regulations and vowing to be more careful in the future.

But Narong Kong-iad, chief of Hat Chao Mai National Park, said the producer was well informed of the regulations.

“Sea resources in Hat Chao Mai cannot be caught, hunted or cooked, and the cast was fully aware of that because the officer thoroughly informed them of the restrictions before filming,” Narong said.

Jatuporn Buruspat, director of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, said the National Parks Department had already filed a formal complaint.

“This was clearly an illegal action because the giant clam is identified in the appendix to the CITES agreement protecting wildlife internationally,” Jatuporn said.

“The authorities previously complained about a food show on which an eagle ray was cooked, even though the marine animal is not yet listed as an endangered species. There is no excuse, since they have to do their research before filming begins.”

Nariaroj Fuanggrabil, head of the film board that give the Koreans permission to shoot in the park, posted a photo of the document on Facebook.

It forbids any depiction of hunting on the show and bars the cast and crew from areas under National Parks control. The producer, Nariaroj wrote, was fully aware of regulations.

The crew allegedly sneaked into a prohibited area as well.

A forest ranger assigned to monitor their activities on Koh Mook within the park said a storm prevented them from filming one day so they called for a boat to take them back to their hotel.

But with their minders from a film coordinating company involved, known as the 6th Element, out of sight, the crew slipped into the area where they seized the giant clams.

The authorities only discovered this transgression when it was aired as part of the show, said Nariaroj.

The producer has been blacklisted from further filming in Thailand, while the 6th Element was let off with a warning.

It’s the second new Korean drama debuting this month after the politically charged “Designated Survivor: 60 Days”, a remake of an American series of the same name.

“Rookie” is a period love story involving aspiring historian Goo Hae-ryung, who dreams of a future in which all people are equal, and Prince Yi Rim, a lonely man who leads a double life as a romance novelist.

The series is set in the 19th-century Joseon Dynasty, when conservative clinging to the past was the norm. The government wishes to record the history of the queen’s quarters and needs a woman historian for the job, so an unprecedented exam is held for female candidates and Goo gets the job in the palace.

Goo, played by Shin Se-kyung, is brazen and honest and believes that the calligraphy brush is mightier than the sword. Shin is known for her leading roles in “The Bride of Habaek” and “Black Knight: The Man Who Guards Me”.

Cha Eun-woo, known for “My ID is Gangnam Beauty” and a member of the K-pop boy band Astro, plays Yi Rim, so of the king and second in line to the throne. But his father dislikes him and even considers him a threat to the royal family.

“Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung” is written by Kim Ho-soo and directed by Kang Il-soo and Han Hyun-hee.

Two episodes a week will air on Netflix.

The portrayal is horrific in its intensity and brevity, cutting away quickly and returning moments later with police tape up and haphazard sheets unable to contain the crimson carnage draining down the floor.

From the other side of the tape, an 8-year-old Luke who has just run outside to escape his traumatic home life looks on, and is soon comforted and led away by another boy, Daniel, to go to the playground.

However, Daniel, as the title makes clear, is not real.

“Daniel Isn’t Real” was one of 10 films in the international Bucheon Choice competition at BIFAN, which ran June 27 to July 7 just west of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province. After its Korean premiere on June 29, director Adam Egypt Mortimer — who would go on to win the Best Director Choice prize on Friday — sat down with The Korea Herald.

“I want to make a movie that’s visual and exciting,” Mortimer said on the 96-minute film about main character Luke and imaginary friend Daniel. “And here’s these little kids and their imaginations coming to life.

“As they get older it becomes less about imagination and more about facing the darkness of reality.”

For all their imaginative play, Daniel turns out to be a tragically bad influence on the real child, and is locked away out of his life until a crucial moment in Luke’s first year at university.

“The premise of this movie is that at 19 years old he (Luke) lets this imaginary force back into his life and that undoes everything,” Mortimer set up. What or who Daniel is, though, may be more than a figment of imagination.

The exploration of Daniel starts from the mundane and gradually expands into various possibilities of the incredible or supernatural, simultaneously as Luke’s world and sanity seem to be ripping apart. Is Daniel actually something explainable, perhaps an allegory for the mental breakdown of a young man who does not yet know who he is? Maybe. Whatever Daniel is, it is something that connects to us all.

“We all have a black hole inside of us, the whole human race has a black hole inside of us. Is that mental illness? Is that a result of our trauma? Is it actually a f—— demon?” the excited director posed.

When Mortimer met writer Brian DeLeeuw more than seven years ago and read his novel on which the movie was based, “In This Way I was Saved,” all he could think about was getting a movie made. “Originally, when we wrote it, it was the story of someone who thinks he’s possessed and then it turns out he’s crazy,” the director said, commenting that at first, “I felt like it was a very nihilistic story I was interested in telling.”

The story’s direction changed many times over, and after the 2016 US presidential election he no longer felt the general public needed reminded of the stark negativity surrounding them. “It became more about how do we acknowledge that we live in this dark nihilistic place and still maintain empathy?”

What started as an aspiring filmmaker’s goal to get something on the big screen became personal. “As we started processing the story, it became to me more about — when I was the same age as Luke, my best friend in college had this complete schizophrenic breakdown,” Mortimer confided. “Looking back on that years later, I see that being a hugely traumatic moment in my life.”

The world around Luke in “Daniel Isn’t Real” is deeply populated in characters with their own problems, particularly classmates trying to discover just who they are. Reflecting on the experience with his best friend, Mortimer commented that at 19 when everyone is seeking strange experiences, “It’s impossible to tell who among your peers is really suffering and really mentally ill.”

“I think that mental illness, demons, fate, tragedy, family, trauma — all of these things become sort of equated in what we’re seeing in the movie,” he said, before offering a glimmer of hope. “If anything in this experience feels familiar to you, then I feel like you’re going to be more attracted to and elated by seeing it unfold than you are to be crushed by the way that it resolves.”

As he thinks to his years ahead in filmmaking, Mortimer said he is content staying around the $5 million budget he had for “Daniel Isn’t Real,” but hopes to turn around future projects more quickly. “I’ll probably keep coming back to trying to make something exciting and cool and beautiful out of a bleak point of view,” he said. “Maybe that’s just something that’s inescapable for me.”

Just as bleak, perhaps, is his outlook on the film industry, as he worries that recent trends in big-budget blockbusters and episodic content will squeeze out two-hour self-contained films.

“I think that every movie is going to have to spray water and vibrate your seat,” the director joked. “It’s a bummer.”

The series, dubbed “Exotic Thailand”, will run through July and August, and features 15 films made in Thailand by international directors, including historical works like “Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness” (1927), “A

Handful of Rice” (1940) and “Yutthana-Siriporn” (1963), as well as “Butterfly Man” (2002), “Soi Cowboy” (2009), “Only God Forgives” (2013), “The Forest” (2017) and “Pop-Aye” (2017).

Over the past 100 years, the image of Siam – later Thailand – has been captured, presented and represented in countless films made by international filmmakers who arrived with their cameras and preconceptions. How did they see Thailand? What were the representative images of our “exotic” Kingdom (elephants, monks, beautiful women)? And how is reality reflected, invented or distorted through those eyes?

“Nangsao Suwan” (“Suvarna of Siam”)

Thailand has been a popular location for decades and the destination of coice for “Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness” (1927) and “The Man with the Golden Gun” (1974). One of the first films shot in Siam was “Nangsao Suwan” (“Suvarna of Siam”) in 1922, by American filmmaker Henry MacRae and featured a Thai cast. The film has since been lost and all that remains are a few stills. In 1927, Merian C Cooper came here to make “Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness”, a proto-disaster film featuring a rampaging herd of wild elephants wreaking havoc on rural villages (Cooper would return to the US and later made the original “King Kong” in 1933). It’s interesting to note that elephants, among other symbols, would continue to be used as a representative of Thailand in almost every film made by foreigners.

The Swedish film “A Handful of Rice” (1940) presented our agricultural society and rural existence through a docudrama narrative. Meanwhile, “Yutthana Siriporn” (1963) is a German film that presents the urban

landscape of Bangkok in the 1960s and a Buddhist rite.

In later decades, the image of Thailand seen through the foreign lens is a rich mix of honest perspective and romantic Orientalism, accented by the arrival of GIs during the Vietnam War with key images including elephants, monks, Buddhism, postcard-perfect beaches, Siamese smiles, bars, ghosts, women of the night and seedy neighbourhoods. James Bond had his adventure here in “The Man with the Golden Gun”, which made Khao Tapu an ultimate icon of cinematic Thailand.

“Hangover II “

“The Elephant King” (2006) is a sober portrait of two brothers in Chiang Mai, while “The Hangover Part II” (2011) is a less sober, wildly exaggerated exoticisation of the Kingdom. Arthouse film “Soi Cowboy” (2009) puts a spin on the relationship between a Thai woman and a European man. Some of these films show Thailand in a way that no Thai films are interested in showing, and while some may present an exoticised view, others offer a clear-eyed gaze at what this country and its people really look like.

The exotic means both serenity and danger, and there are several films that tackle both extremes, such as the Singaporean-directed “Pop-Aye” (2017), which tells the story of a Thai man on a mission to bring an elephant back to its hometown; “Only God Forgives” (2013), starring Ryan Gosling and Vitthaya Pansringam in a blood-soaked gangster thriller (no real elephants in the film, but the lead Thai character is named Chang or Elephant); and “Lost in Thailand” (2014), a Chinese road movie that launched a craze of tourism to the North of Thailand.

“Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness” (1927)

The “Exotic Thailand” programme also features a number of films produced by Tom Waller, a Thai director/producer of Irish descent who offers a unique viewpoint on the Thai narrative. For instance his “Mindfulness and Murder” (2011), a film about a monk who investigates a murder in a temple; “Butterfly Man” (2002), about a British tourist and a Thai masseuse; and “Ghost of Nak” (2005), a Mae Nak legend directed by an English director.

On August 17, a special talk session with Tom Waller and Wikanda Phromkhunthong, a film lecturer at Mahidol University, will discuss the “exotic” quality of Thailand from past to present, and how Thailand has been represented on the cinema screen over the past 100 years.

Programme

July 4, 5.30pm: Lost in Thailand (China, 2012)

July 6, 1pm: A Handful of Rice (Sweden, 1940)

July 16, 1pm: Yutthana-Siriporn (Germany, 1963)

Aug 1, Ghost of Nak (Thailand, Directed by Mike Duffield, 2005)

Aug 3, 1pm: Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (USA, 1927)

Aug 3, 3pm: The Forest (Thailand, directed by Paul Spurrier, 2016)

Aug 7, 5.30pm: Bangkok Dangerous (Thailand, directed by Oxide and Danny Pang, 1999)

Aug 17, 1pm: Soi Cowboy (Thailand, directed by Thomas Clay, 2009)

Followed by a panel discussion with Tom Waller (producer) and Wikanda Phromkhunthong (scholar)

Aug 24, 1pm: Pop-Aye (Singapore, Thailand, directed by Kirsten Tan,2017)

Aug 24, 3pm: The Elephant King (Thailand, directed by Seth Grossman,2006)

Aug 25, 1pm: The Hangover Part II (USA, 2011)

Aug 25, 3pm: The Man with the Golden Gun (UK, 1974)

Aug 29, 5.30pm: Butterfly Man (Thailand, Directed by Kaprice Kea, 2002)

 But with drugs and the violence that procuring them often entails still very much part of daily life, the Thai Film Archive is inviting cinephiles to dwell on these problems with a “Drugs in Film” programme that kicks off today and runs through the end of this month. Ten Thai films and one international movie will be shown at the Salaya Theatre at the Archive on Buddha Monthon Sai 5, Salaya.

Showing this evening at 5.30 is the classic Thai movie “Ruang Khong Nampu” (“The Story of Nampu”). Made in 1984 and directed by Euthana Mukdasanit, it’s based on the story of late writer Suwanee Sukhontha who lost her son to drugs. The film sent singer/actor Amphon Lumpoon to stardom for his portrayal of Nampu and became a massive hit at the box office.

“Countdown”

Other films include “Heroin” (1994) and “Sia Dai” (1994) directed by MC Chatrichalerm Yukol. “Sia Dai” (1994) is an award-winning drama about high-school girls who escape their family troubles by spending time in a drug den while “Heroin” (1994) is an action drama that delves into the heroin trade in Pattaya. Also on the programme are “Hian” (2003), a horror film about a drug runner who encounters an evil presence in a hospital and “Sicario 2” (2018), the American narcotic thriller. Screening too are “18 Fon Khon Antarai” (1997), which is widely considered Poj Anon’s best film, about a group of rogue teenagers trying to turn their lives around only to be dragged back into the vicious cycle and the late action director Panna Ritthikrai’s 2003 film “Kerd Malui” (“Born To Fight”) (2003), a police thriller in which a young captain is sent to bust a drug gang in a border town.

Programme:

July 2, 5:30pm: Nampu (1984)

July 3, 5:30pm: Khu Torahod (1977)

July 5, 5:30pm: Hian (2003)

July 9, 5:30pm: Heroin (1994)

July 10, 5:30pm: Sam Chook (2009)

July 12, 5:30pm: Khao Na Nueng (1986)

July 18, 5:30pm: Sicario 2 (2018)

July 19, 5:30pm: Countdown (2002)

July 23, 5:30pm: 18 Fon Khon Antarai (1997)

July 30, 5:30pm: Sia Dai (1994)

July 31, 5:30pm: Kerd Ma Lui (2003)

Find out more at Facebook.com/Thai Film Archive Screen.