Luang Prabang Film Festival Sets Fully Virtual Selection

The Laos-based Luang Prabang Film Festival has set out a selection that focuses strongly on films from South East Asia, or were made in or about the region. Now entering its tenth edition, the independent festival will be held fully online this year and run Dec. 4-10, 2020.

All films will be screened free of charge, with streaming access opened to viewers in Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The lineup of 24 feature films and 10 shorts includes “Buoyancy,” a Cambodia-Australia fictionalized account of the human trafficking in the region’s commercial fishing industry, and mystical Thai film “Manta Ray” which touches on the Rohinga problem, identity and displacement.

The festival also gives Indonesian animated documentary “kOsOng” its Southeast Asian premiere. The film follows five women from Java and the pressures and revelations they face in living a childless life. Anthony Chen’s “Wet Season” drama about taboo relationships in Singapore represents a change of tone.

The lineup includes 12 films by women filmmakers, eight films by first time filmmakers, and three Lao films, each one a previous recipient of LPFF’s Lao Filmmakers Fund: “Expiration Date”; Mattie Do’s “The Long Walk,” and “In the Shadows.”

Luang Prabang Film Festival 2020 Official Selection
“27 Steps of May” (Indonesia)

“The Girl and the Gun” (aka “Babae at Baril) (Philippines)

“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” (Indonesia)

“Buoyancy” (Australia)

“Cleaners” (Philippines)

“Edward” (Philippines)

“Expiration Date” (Laos)

“John Denver Trending” (Philippines)

“kOsOng” (Indonesia)

“Manta Ray” (aka “Kraben Rahu”) (Thailand)

“Krabi, 2562” (Thailand)

“Mekong 2030” (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam)

“Metro Maalai” (Malaysia)

“Mi” (Myanmar)

“Motif” (Malaysia)

“Ode to Nothing” (aka “Oda sa Wala) (Philippines)

“Rom” (Vietnam)

“Stranger’s House” (Myanmar)

“The Clock: Spirits Awakening” (Cambodia)

“The Long Walk” (Laos)

“The Tree House” (Vietnam)

“Tia Madre” (Philippines)

“Wet Season” (Singapore).