From tomorrow until Nov 6, the Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (Seafic) will host an open house at the Goethe-Institut Thailand and Alliance Française Bangkok. Seafic is the pioneering non-profit filmmakers' lab for Southeast Asian directors and producers, and has gained more momentum as a launch pad for new film projects from upcoming directors in the region.
Seafic Open House is a public event, and while film professionals will be particularly interested in meeting Southeast Asian filmmakers and esteemed international guests, anyone is invited to join the free screenings, panels and talks, at both venues.
Tomorrow at 4.30pm, Seafic will screen Postcard From The Zoo, an acclaimed 2012 Indonesian film by Edwin. In this drily surreal and gently idiosyncratic movie, all sorts of animals (notably a giraffe) become an epiphany for a young woman who's grown up in Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo, and who later experiences a different kind of zoological wonder and heartache in the larger cage known as life. Edwin (he goes by only one name) and his producer Maiske Taurisia will attend the screening at Goethe and talk about the process of writing the film and see it through several script workshops.
On Nov 6, there will be a screening of First Reformed, directed by Paul Schrader and starring Ethan Hawke, at Alliance Francaise on Witthayu. First Reformed came out last year and has never been released on the big screen in Thailand. In this religious drama, Hawke plays a priest at a First Reformed church in upstate New York who struggles to cope with the weight of tragedy and the tormented past that comes with the arrival of a woman (played by Amanda Seyfried). Writer-director Schrader is well-known for being the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Christine Vachon, an acclaimed producer whose works include Carol, Far From Heaven, Still Alice and many others.
Besides the two free screenings, Seafic will host an open fair, providing an opportunity for filmmakers, producers and others to come and meet major international organisations such as Produire au Sud, Locarno Open Doors, Purin Pictures, Busan Asian Film School, White Light Post and others. There will also be panel discussions and talks with international guests including Franz Rodenkirchen, an acclaimed script consultant; Meinhof Zurhorst, head of film department at ZDF/Arte; Jacob Wong, a respected programmer from Hong Kong; and producer Christine Vachon.
For more information, go to seaficlab.com. Register for the screening at afthailande.org/en/event-en?idevent=878.
