2007 Bangkok International Film Festival

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
2007 Bangkok International Film Festival
The official festival poster.
Opening filmChildren of Glory
Closing filmMuay Thai Chaiya
LocationCentralWorld, Bangkok
AwardsGolden Kinaree Award for Best Film: XXY
Festival dateJuly 19 to July 29, 2007

The 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival was held from July 19 to July 29, 2007, at

Asian cinema.[1]

Scheduling, budgetary difficulties

Originally scheduled for January 26 to February 5, the festival was postponed because of a lack of available venues, since Bangkok cinemas at the time had planned to be fully booked with screenings of the part one of The Legend of King Naresuan.

In addition, the film festival organization was hit with a massive budget cut, from 180 million baht to 60 million baht, which resulted in festival organizers, the Tourism Authority of Thailand, having to break their contract with Los Angeles–based Film Festival Management, which had programmed the festival since 2004.

In previous years, the festival's focus had been on big-budget Hollywood films and lavish, red-carpet appearances by celebrities, flown to Bangkok at the festival's expense. With the budget cut and the focus on Asian films, the 2007 festival was expected to be a departure from past years.[2]

Controversy

The festival initially announced that the French-produced animated feature

Islamic Revolution. However, the Embassy of Iran
asked the festival organizers to consider showing another film from Iran, so Persepolis was dropped from the program. The festival director, Chattan Kunjara Na Ayudhya, was quoted as saying:

I was invited by the Iranian embassy to discuss the matter and we both came to mutual agreement that it would be beneficial to both countries if the film was not shown. It's a good film, but there are other considerations.[3]

We had a request from the Iranian Embassy that the film festival remove the film, and we did. Now we move on.[4]

However, Chattan also said that the decision to cancel the film was his alone and that "there was no outside pressure".[4]

The

Blood in the Water" Olympic water polo match and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
, was chosen as the replacement opening film.

Program highlights

The festival's lineup featured a retrospective of films by Spanish director Luis Buñuel and a tribute to Indian actress Hema Malini. Malini was among the celebrities taking part in the festival's opening night festivities.

The main competition categories for the Golden Kinaree were for international films and

ASEAN films from Southeast Asia, as well as an international short-film competition. Non-competition sections were for Thai Panorama (Thai films
released in 2006 and 2007) Asian films, ASEAN films, documentaries and the wide-ranging Windows on the World.

The closing film was

Kongkiat Khomsiri
.

Competition

Competition trophies were given out in an awards banquet presided over by Princess Ubol Ratana in the World Ballroom in the Centara Grand and Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld.

Golden Kinaree Awards

ASEAN competition

Lifetime Achievement Award

Jameson International Short Films Award

References

  1. ^ TAT's rescheduled film festival on July 19-29, The Nation, retrieved 2007-03-17.
  2. ^ BKK International Film Festival reschedules Archived 2007-02-28 at the Wayback Machine, The Nation, 2007-02-22.
  3. ^ Thailand pulls Iranian cartoon from film festival, Reuters, 2007-06-27.
  4. ^ a b Thai festival removes praised film after pressure from Iran, AP, 2007-06-27.
  5. ^ a b c d Rithdee, Kong (2007-07-29). ""XXY" triumphs at troubled Bangkok fest". Variety. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-29.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2007_Bangkok_International_Film_Festival&oldid=1194917181"