At first, no one could imagine how a town without a cinema would host a film festival. Movies need screens, but where's the screen? And we're not just talking about any town — it's Luang Prabang, the enchanting Unesco World Heritage site by the Mekong, the town known better for its rapt serenity and majestic temples than for its role as a movie junction.
The outdoor screenings at Luang Prabang Film Festival are a relaxed affair.
But here it is, five years on and the Luang Prabang Film Festival (LPFF) has proved the sceptics wrong. Unlikely as it seems, film has become a new attraction in this quiet Lao town.
The fifth edition of this mid-size, friendly and growing cine-event takes place from Dec 6 to 10, with nearly 30 films and the focus remaining on Southeast Asian cinema. This year, the line-up expresses the festival's increasing confidence. It includes the Thai 2013 megahit Phi Mak Phrakanong and last year's Cambodian Oscar shortlist The Missing Picture, as well as new indie productions from the Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. It's worth noting that as the frenzy of the Asean Economic Community continues to grow in Thailand, it's this small Lao festival, despite its many limitations, that has championed regional culture with commitment for years.
Most encouragingly, however, is the growing presence of Lao films. The festival this year will open with Vientiane In Love, an ensemble movie by young Lao filmmakers and is just one of the four Lao titles showing.
"It's been a journey. It's hard to believe that we're approaching our fifth festival," says Gabriel Kuperman, an American who's been living in Luang Prabang for many years and who founded the festival in 2010. "Back then, we just showed feature films in one outdoor venue. Now we have multiple venues, exhibitions, panel discussions, short film programmes, live performances and many filmmakers in attendance to present their films."
Although devoid of movie houses, Luang Prabang has, from the beginning, found a way to turn that deficit into an appeal. The main screen of the festival is outdoors, at the town square near the Handicraft Market, where every night almost a thousand viewers turn up.
Over the last few years, the atmosphere has been that of lively festivity, with tourists and locals occupying plastic chairs, different food vendors at the rear and kids running around. There are also a fair number of motorcyclists that ride in and park at the back, at an angle where they can also see the screen. If visitors aren't grabbed by a particular movie, they may even choose to wander the market during a screening.
The main advantage of having an outdoor projection is that the festival is firmly positioned as a fair mainly for the locals, as opposed to something cooked up as a tourist attraction. In fact, as the town has no cinemas, most people, especially the young generation, never had the experience of watching a movie on the big screen before the LPFF came to town. This cultural enrichment is probably the most important role of the festival.
"It took a lot of explanation at first to describe what a film festival was," says Kuperman, who runs the festival with a number of Lao assistants. "Now, people ask me throughout the year when the next festival will be. Out biggest audience is the local Lao people who yearn to see films on the big screen and from what I can tell, they seem to revel in the opportunity.
"The local authorities also see a great benefit, because Luang Prabang has very few international events. They're slowly warming up to this idea that we're building something important in regards to the scene of Southeast Asian cinema."
The festival usually chooses crowd-pleasers to feature on their main outdoor screen, such as horrors or comedies. Next week, the showing of Phi Mak Phrakanong — a romantic-horror film and Thailand's all-time top grosser — has been whipped up as a landmark event; it's true that many Lao people may have seen the film in other formats, but to show it on the giant screen with a thousand people in attendance is unarguably special. Meanwhile, the showing of Cambodia's The Missing Picture, a documentary about life under the Khmer Rouge, is a remarkable decision. Last year, the main screen showed a Malaysia drama Kil, a Thai-Lao horror The Red Scarf, as well as hosted a performance by a troupe of Lao B-boy dancers.
In the past two years, the festival has added an indoor venue, namely a room where films are screened on a big-screen television. It's certainly not an ideal way to watch movies, but at least it has provided outlets for edgier films from the region in the hope of building up a larger audience in the long run.
"When we started LPFF, we saw a gap in the regional programming — no film festivals dedicated to showing Southeast Asian titles — and we took the initiative to fill it," says Kuperman. "Sure, Laos and Luang Prabang seem unlikely places to be flag-bearers for the regions' film community, but why not? Who wouldn't want to celebrate the very best of the region's cinema in one of the region's finest towns?"
Kuperman and his team rely on sponsorship from private companies and embassies. In the early editions, the standards of projection and organisation weren't top-class, but the improvement over the years has been convincing. Filmmakers, too, were once reluctant to attend, but soon the magic of Luang Prabang's outdoor atmosphere started to exert a considerable pull.
The advent of LPFF has also coincided with the awakening of young Lao filmmakers. The film industry in Laos was virtually non-existent over the past several decades, but since 2010, a crop of young directors have emerged and their films — though limited in technical and financial means — have signalled a resurgence of the country's pop culture. Anysay Keola broke through with Plai Tang, or At The Horizon, a Lao thriller, and last year's Huk Am Lam, a romantic comedy by Panumas Deesattha, became a runaway hit in Vientiane cineplexes.
At LPFF next week, the festival will show a romantic ensemble Vientiane In Love, the drama My Teacher, a comedy called Tuk Tuk and another romance called Really Love. In another regional development, Thailand's cinema chain Major Cineplex is attending the festival with the plan to acquire films for theatrical distribution.
"Luang Prabang Film Festival has provided a platform for Lao filmmakers to showcase our work," says Anysay, a Lao filmmaker.
"It is challenging for us to have our films seen outside the country. But LPFF always has space for Lao films. Also, with the Lao Filmmakers Fund, both established and aspiring filmmakers can have an opportunity to bring their film idea to life and make a quality film."
Singaporean film Sayang Disayang will be showing at the LPFF.
A scene from Lao film Vientiane In Love.
The projection at an outdoor screening at Luang Prabang Film Festival.
