Visual Anthropology

ISSN: 0894-9468 (Print) 1545-5920 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gvan20

The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave

Panivong Norindr

To cite this article: Panivong Norindr (2018) The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave, Visual
Anthropology, 31:1-2, 14-33, DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2018.1428011

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2018.1428011

Published online: 08 Apr 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gvan20
Visual Anthropology, 31: 14–33, 2018
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0894-9468 print/1545-5920 online
DOI: 10.1080/08949468.2018.1428011

none defined

The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave

Panivong Norindr

The debut work of Mattie Do and Anysay Keola attests to the manner in which Lao
cinema is being shaped by a new wave of young filmmakers determined to build a
viable movie industry in the Lao PDR. With Chantaly, the first Lao horror movie,
Mattie Do conjures up a world that cannot be fully explained rationally. She relies
on the phi figure, and the belief of Lao people in supernatural beings, to raise serious
questions about the traditional position occupied by women in the Lao family.
Another film, Anysay Keola’s At the Horizon, the first Lao thriller, provides an edgy
vision of contemporary Laos. The divide between the poor and the rich, tradition
and modernity, is conveyed most originally via the soundtrack. Mattie Do and
Anysay Keola are part of a new wave of promising young Lao directors who are
fashioning a modern film industry in Laos.

THE RISE OF LAO CINEMA

It has been said that Lao cinema does not exist, or only exists in name.1 Such a
stark assessment may have been accurate only a decade or two ago, but it now
needs to be corrected. Today Lao cinema is enjoying a golden age after several
decades of intermittent activity.2 It is in the midst of being defined by a new wave
of young filmmakers who are determined to build a viable movie industry and
transform the way filmmaking is imagined and produced in the Lao PDR. In
spite of the many challenges that they are facing, not least being the Lao
government’s strict policies about what can appear on screen, Mattie Do and
Anysay Keola have succeeded in creating exciting new works that are beginning
to attract the attention of spectators at home and gain the approval of a cinephilic
audience at international film festivals abroad and particularly in Southeast Asia.
These directors are among a group of young filmmakers who are transforming
Lao film culture by making cinema once again relevant for a domestic audience
as well as leaving a mark on world cinema. They are injecting original new

PANIVONG NORINDR teaches Francophone, French and Southeast Asian cinema in the
Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of French and Italian at the University
of Southern California. He is the author of Phantasmatic Indochina [Duke University Press] and
numerous essays on European and Southeast Asian documentary and feature films. He has
published two previous essays on Laotian cinema, and is currently completing a book on French
cinema entitled (Post)Colonial Screens. E-mail: norindr@college.usc.edu
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.
tandfonline.com/gvan.

14
 The Future of Lao Cinema 15

perspectives on film genres like the horror movie and the thriller, which had
never before been taken up by Lao filmmakers.
A number of factors have contributed to this rapidly-evolving film landscape
in Laos: a slight loosening of the governmental grip on filmmaking, the
cooperation of the Cinema Department of the Ministry of Information, Culture
and Tourism with private, local production companies like Lao Art Media,3 the
injection of foreign capital in the construction of such exhibition venues as the
Lao-ITECC, a two-screen theater, opened in 2003,4 that showcase both foreign
and domestic films, including emerging local filmmakers, the advent of film
festivals in Luang Prabang and Vientiane created by enthusiastic individuals
eager to promote cinema culture from across the region and, more importantly,
present Lao film talents. These filmmakers are also taking full advantage of the
power of the internet and social media to create new opportunities for film-
makers, using these new 21st-century technologies very effectively to crowd-fund
their film projects as well as distribute them via the internet in order to dissemi-
nate and share their work with a large community of cineastes around the globe.5
As we will see below, both Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are in the process of
defining a new Lao cinema that speaks to contemporary issues.
Although I will argue that Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are key members of
what I call the Lao New Wave Cinema, and are committed to developing
a healthy cinema industry in the country, it is important for us to note that the
partnership that brought them together in Vientiane originated from very differ-
ent locations and circumstances. Mattie Do is a young Lao-American filmmaker,
born and raised in Los Angeles, fluent in both Lao and English, who returned to
Laos with her family in 2010. She is establishing deep roots in the capital city.
Although Do was not formally trained at a film school, she initially worked as
a make-up artist, learning her craft through immersion in the film industry, first
in the United States. and now as a full-fledged director in Laos. Like Keola, Do
made very effective use of social media, financing her second movie project, Nong
Hack (Dearest Sister), through crowd funding. Anysay Keola is a Lao citizen
educated in both Australia—he earned his undergraduate degree in Multimedia
systems—and in Thailand, where he studied for a M.A. in Film at Chulalongkorn
University. In order to make a feature film in Laos, part of the requirements for
his M.A. thesis, he had to be very resourceful. He mentioned networking on
Facebook and YouTube to find the crew and freelancers he needed to complete
the project, which included enlisting the help of “aspiring directors, DPs, writers,
sound professionals, gaffer and graphic designers” [Potter 2013], who all agreed
to work for nothing. They formed the core of his collaborators and part of the
production company that he co-founded, Lao New Wave Cinema Productions
(LNWC). As will become quite apparent, the intricate film tapestry that is
emerging in Laos is composed of original works imagined by very different
individuals who have complex cultural affiliations that take us beyond the
“national”/“diaspora” debate or the North/South divide. These young directors
compel us to consider different forces at play in the production, distribution and
exhibition of movies, including the impact of regional, South-South relations and
influences in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. In Anysay Keola’s case, for
instance, his thriller, At the Horizon, was screened not only domestically at the
16 P. Norindr

Luang Prabang Film Festival in 2012, but also at the Hua Hin International Film
Festival and the Oz Asia Festival in Australia. In an interview he gave in the USA,
Keola acknowledges the influence of Thai films (as well as Hollywood). For his
next project, he is busy at work on a film that will be co-produced by Ananda
Everingham, the Lao-Australian actor who has a large following in Thailand
through such films as Good Morning Luang Prabang [2008], a romance, and many
other soap-like love stories. Like Keola, Do has succeeded in producing an
original Lao movie in spite of the many challenges she encountered, including
the lack of resources and the demands and restrictions imposed by Lao authori-
ties. The critical and popular success of Mattie Do’s Chantaly has earned her many
invitations to international film festivals and professional workshops including
the one sponsored by the Cannes Film Festival. (Only Som Ock Southiponh, of
Red Lotus fame, had managed to secure such a prestigious invitation for a Lao
filmmaker.) The kind of exposure and new visibility that has come to Do may
also be attributed to the fact that she is regarded in the West as the only woman
Lao filmmaker practicing her craft today. More skeptical observers would see the
more expansive definition of Laotianness as being part of an elaborate marketing
strategy concocted by Western/First World film producers eager to promote an
exotic cinema that is now able to compete in world cinema. But as Som Ock
Southiponh’s difficult film trajectory has made quite clear [1997], this kind of
visibility may never translate into a movie deal. Although Southiponh was
regarded as the quintessential Lao filmmaker who should have been able to
pursue a successful film career, he was never able to get the financial backing
to direct another feature film.
What I am also suggesting here is that in our effort to delimit the boundaries
of an emergent cinema like the one that is being imagined today by Mattie Do,
Anysay Keola and other busy young Lao filmmakers, we often fail to consider
the fact that these “national” borders have shifted and have become more porous
as the Lao government is encouraging the development of an industry that needs
the expertise of both foreign-schooled Lao citizens and that of diasporic Lao eager
to return to Laos to contribute to the transformation of its cinematic landscape.
Attempts at fixing the boundaries of a national cinema are further thwarted by
the dynamic interplay between the immaterial and material realms that constitute
cinema, with its fiction as a territorialized medium that would merely capture the
physical and spiritual beauty of the land and its people, through the vision of a
favorite director, embodied by a popular actor or a voice speaking in the
native tongue. Other factors such as the citizenship or country of residence of
the director, the composition of the film crew, the origin of the sources of funding
allocated by production companies scattered throughout the world, and perhaps
most importantly, the reliance on social media to fund their film projects and
disseminate their works to a much wider audience, certainly complicate the
picture of a national cinema that remains largely unseen and unknown. As we
will see below, Do and Keola, in their inaugural feature-length films, are reima-
gining a transnational Lao cinema that has not only mobilized native Lao citizens
but also diasporic Lao subjects who come from Australia, France and the United
States, who are eager to collaborate with young professionals in the film industry
from all over the world, to achieve their ambition of creating a thriving Lao
 The Future of Lao Cinema 17

film industry. From the positive reception of their inaugural movies, Mattie
Do and Anysay Keola have reached a number of different audiences, from local
spectators to international film festival attendees as well as savvy internet users.
Their movies open up fascinating spaces of intervention that undermine the very
notion of a “national cinema” while at the same time revealing the subjects of a
New Wave Lao cinema that resonate with spectators at home and abroad.
Before we examine their debut films that attest to the creative energies of the
Lao New Wave cinema, it is important to note that private production companies
have only appeared quite recently in the media landscape in Laos. Lao Art
Media, one of the oldest private film production companies in Lao PDR,6 was
founded belatedly in 2000 by the screenwriter and director Anousone Sirisackda
and the producer Douangmany Soliphanh (better known today as the actor who
played the role of the father in Mattie Do’s horror movie, Chanthaly). Lao Art
Media began originally as a music production company. The Lao-Bulgarian
musician and pop-star sensation, Alexandra Bounxouei, was produced by Lao
Art Media. As a film production company, it initially produced short documen-
tary films for international organizations working in Laos—including UNICEF
and the UNDP. Lao Art Media has also partnered with the Thai production
company Sparta Films and co-produced what many considered to be Laos’ first
commercial feature film, Sabaidee Luang Prabang [2007]. Most recently Lao Art
Media co-produced Mattie Do’s Chanthaly, Laos’ first horror film. This successful
partnership continued with Do’s second feature film, Nong Hak (Dearest Sister).
It is difficult to convey the very real difficulties that these film industry profes-
sionals have encountered and are still facing today. Mattie Do’s entire film bud-
get for Chanthaly was a miniscule U.S. $5,000. Of course, the cost of filming in
Laos is also quite low. In her crowd-funding appeal for her second feature film,
Do reports that “$15 K is a healthy film budget in Laos. I can already afford 30
shooting days, I can pay my cast and crew a little bit, and I can shoot the film,
like the last one, on my Canon 550D.” And yet, in spite of these financial obstacles
that of course have a real impact on the look of the film, members of this incipient
film industry have been resourceful and found ingenious ways to make films.
The most important one, as has been already hinted above, is the collaborative
nature of their enterprise.

THE COLLECTIVE PRACTICE OF LAO FILMMAKING

The filmmaking practice that is currently being imagined and built by these young
filmmakers constitutes one of the fascinating facets in the development of a nascent
film industry in contemporary Laos. In the case of an emerging cinema there that
has very little financial support from the government, which only has the resources
to produce one film per year, this aspect of filmmaking should not be neglected.
Perhaps because of these financial constraints, the Lao New Wave had to find
innovative solutions to moviemaking, which include working collaboratively
and sharing resources. The Lao New Wave brings together Lao and non-Lao,
people from the Lao diaspora along with citizens born and raised in Laos. It is
made up of individuals who were trained abroad, and lived or studied film in such
18 P. Norindr

nations as Australia, France, Thailand, and the United States. Film education in
Laos is almost non-existent for there is no film school there. After 1975, individuals
who expressed interest in working in the film industry were sent by the Lao
government to be educated in the former Soviet Union (like Anousoune Sirisackda
who studied at the National University of Theatre, Film and TV in Kiev) and East-
ern bloc nations like the Czech Republic (Som Ock Southiponh enrolled at the
famed Faculty of Film and Television at Charles University). The impact on film-
making is self-evident. The professional training in these nations has a deep impact
on the movie’s aesthetic. For this new generation of Lao filmmakers, the socialist-
realist aesthetic did not speak to them. Their ambition is to produce movies that
could be seen as “quality” products, which essentially means that they emulate
the polished look of Western commercial cinema.
What must also be stressed is that contemporary filmmaking in Laos is a collective
practice that, born out of necessity, is erasing the boundaries of the once well-
delimited realms of production, exhibition and distribution. The lack of resources
has forced these young auteurs to be inventive and practical. They have learned
about all facets of the film industry, both behind and in front of the camera. Young
Lao actors are at the same time directors; some have founded their own production
companies to finance their films and those of the members in their collective. They
work on each other’s project in various capacities: Mattie Do, the first Lao woman
director to shoot a horror movie, for instance, is not just a screen-writer/director,
celebrated for her debut film, Chanthaly [2013], for she collaborated with Anysay
Keola’s debut film, working on the English subtitles of the thriller.7 In return he lent
some of his camera lenses so that Mattie Do could shoot her movie.
The blurring of the work of producing and filmmaking in Laos is becoming
more commonplace, as new private production companies are being established,
thanks to a more relaxed policy of the Lao government, which now seeks to pro-
mote private enterprises and businesses. As mentioned earlier, Lao Art Media
was co-founded by the screenwriter and director Anousone Sirisackda and the
producer Douangmany Soliphanh in 2000. It certainly helped that after his film
training in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Sirisackda returned to Laos to work
for the Cinema Department before venturing into the private sector and founding
Lao Art Media. New production companies like Lao New Wave Cinema
Productions have benefited from these more forgiving policies and are actively
engaged in financing and producing Lao movies of all kinds,8 from music videos
to feature films like At the Horizon. Lao New Wave Cinema Productions’ objective
is to shed light on the ambition and desire of the collective:

Lao New Wave Cinema Productions is a film production company co-founded by a

collective of young film-makers [sic] residing in Laos. Our primary aim is to change the
face of the Lao movie industry to reflect current trends and ideas. Some of us are native
to this country, and some are not, but our common passion is to produce quality images
and stories. Secondly, in order to survive in the business world, we aim to expand our
products and services to cover more than just our own movie projects. We will offer
our technical expertise and inside knowledge of Laos and its culture to help local and
international clients—be it for documentaries, commercials, TV programs, TV series,
corporate videos, music videos or fiction. [Lao New Wave Cinema Productions 2016]
 The Future of Lao Cinema 19

This public declaration reveals the aspirations and values shared by members
of this collective. As they assert quite resolutely, their “primary aim is to change
the face of the Lao movie industry to reflect current trends and ideas”—a call to
transform Lao cinema quite radically by attending to contemporary topics that
members of their generation find compelling, which they hope will allow them
to attract and captivate an autochthonous audience of moviegoers.9 They seem
to be positioning themselves against a generation of older Lao filmmakers who
were tasked with the unenviable mission of filming official state conventions
and political discourses, or war movies in the socialist-realist mode. These young
filmmakers bring their creative energy, entrepreneurship and international
experience to make a reality of various types of film project, from music video
and commercial to documentary and feature-length films. Because the collective
includes both Lao and non-Lao members10 who have been influenced by a var-
iety of Western filmmakers, the collective offers a transnational perspective to
an autochthonous cinema that is in the process of delimiting the new boundaries
of a “national” cinema, which are not simply imposed by the coercive force of the
Lao state but are in the process of being defined by these young filmmakers. It is
an exhilarating moment for Lao cinema. To complete their movies, these
filmmakers have successfully negotiated with the Cinema Department to find
elegant solutions to satisfy the state’s control board and avoid censorship while
at the same time remaining true to their vision.
There are other advantages to including non-Lao members in their midst. They
benefit from their comrades’ technical expertise and professional training so that
they can focus on the proper business of filmmaking, that is to say, use the film
medium to create a deeply personal (as well as affective) vision of Laos, while
providing the viewing audience with an original perspective on contemporary
life, one that does not necessarily mesh with a more instrumental idea of cinema
as simply an extension of the state propaganda machine. To illustrate this point, it
would suffice to quote the Director of the Cinema Department, Mr. Bounchao
Phichit, who spoke at the opening ceremony of the 3rd Vientianale International
Film Festival, on February 26, 2013, before a gathering of dignitaries and the
diplomatic corps, and made the following pronouncement: “Film production
companies have been established. Some films produced by locals have won inter-
national awards including the Vientianale awards. This has contributed to the
growth of the Lao film industry and the promotion of fine tradition, culture
and tourism of Laos at the international arena” [Vinnaly 2013]. The promotion
of tourism and the traditions and culture of Laos was precisely the main subject
of Good Morning Luang Prabang, a romance movie that was easily endorsed by the
Lao state. It became quite successful in large part because the sentimental love
story was the perfect vehicle to showcase Lao traditions and customs in the best
possible light. As we will see below, our young filmmakers will venture outside
this well rehearsed and formulaic plot of the foreign tourist falling in love with
the beautiful Lao tour guide and the country of Laos. Mattie Do and Anysay
Keola took chances with their debut films. They did not rely on these well-
established formulae with their debut films, Chanthaly and At the Horizon.
At stake then is the building and nurturing of an emergent cinema industry
that can grow and thrive in spite of the long shadow cast by the state. Because
20 P. Norindr

this new cinema does not receive any funding from the Lao state, the directors
have retained a certain measure of independence, even if the script must first
be approved by the Cinema Department. Anysay Keola reported that the first
draft of At the Horizon was not approved and had to be rewritten.11 Because a
movie project must first receive the state’s seal of approval to go forward, this
new cinema could potentially be part of a growing corpus of œuvres that will help
shape its “national cinema,” especially if it earned critical accolades at home and
abroad, bringing prestige to a struggling industry and the nation too. Of course, a
film prize does not guarantee that the movie will be distributed on Lao soil,
especially if it is deemed too violent or risqué for the strict Laotian sense of
morality. We are still a long way from viewing Lao movies that would offer dis-
senting political views. So by turning to genre movies like the horror film and the
suspense thriller, Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are staying clear of these more
problematic and complex political issues.
It appears that for the New Wave Collective, for a movie to be truly called Lao,
it must fulfill one basic requirement: it must be made in Laos by filmmakers who
reside and work in Laos. This would eliminate from contention the work of quite
a number of diasporic Lao filmmakers who reside and work in Australia,
Canada, France or the United States. It is a contentious issue but one that
deserves a fuller study elsewhere. For now, we must examine the Lao New Wave
and their insistence on a “cinema of quality,” which is one of the determining
objectives that will help establish a healthy and credible Lao industry.
Having put forth and insisted on the production of “quality images and
stories” as one of its main objectives, the two movies that this essay examines
more closely will test the limits of this Lao cinéma de qualité, a notion that was
famously contested by François Truffaut and other members of the French
New Wave. What are quality images? Are we simply talking about the quality
of the cinematography and the well-composed, harmonious shot? That is of
course not enough. Technical prowess will certainly help attract a new generation
of Lao spectators, but the stories must also deal with compelling subject matter
and engage the audience.

CHARTING A NEW PATH: MATTIE DO’S HORROR MOVIE CHANTHALY

This young filmmaker has received considerable attention for her path-breaking
horror movie, Chanthaly. It is the first Lao horror movie ever conceived, written
and shot in Laos. That the movie was made at all is a testament to Mattie Do’s
resolve and determination. It is, as she readily admits, her first attempt at film-
making. But what an auspicious beginning it is, since Do had never even directed
a short film! The story of how a film project became a reality is indeed edifying
and should encourage other budding filmmakers. It also illuminates the current
state of filmmaking in Laos, charting a path for transforming an artisanal way of
making film and turning it into a vibrant, professional (if still incipient) movie
industry.12
The total budget of Chanthaly was only $5,000. From its exquisite look, one
would not have guessed that such a modest fund could enable such a polished
 The Future of Lao Cinema 21

production. Of course, the “real” cost exceeded that amount since it does not take
into account the unpaid labor of the actors and the small film crew. The entire
movie was also shot in Mattie Do’s Vientiane home, which she shares with her
husband, the screenwriter Christopher Larsen, thus further minimizing the
overheads. Shooting with a digital camera—an old Canon 550 DSLR—and
editing the digital footage on Macbook Pro—also reduced the expenditure.
And yet that small amount of money went a long way, allowing for more than
60 days of shooting and 120 hours of raw footage. The result is Chanthaly, a
suspense horror that has earned critical accolades and was chosen as an official
selection in such international film festivals as the Luang Prabang Film Festival
and The Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival (August 21-24, 2014) in
Hobart, Tasmania. Chanthaly had its North American Premiere at Fantastic Fest
in Austin, Texas, in 2013, and its UK premiere at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre
on November 7, 2014.
Chanthaly is a horror film based on Lao superstition and supernatural beliefs
but, according to Do, “It’s not a blood and guts horror movie, and it’s not a mon-
ster movie. […] So much of the film revolves around the ubiquitous spirit house
and Lao superstition” [Thao Worra 2013]. Although Theravada Buddhism is the
universally accepted religion in Laos, many Lao people also believe in a spiritual
life based on traditional animist practices. The belief in spirits, or phi, affects the
way people relate to nature, understand illness and misfortune, and shapes inter-
personal relationships. Spirits can be found in animals and places, especially
dangerous places. Offerings of various kinds are made to placate them. Because
the movie was written and shot with a Lao audience in mind, Do builds on the
Lao spectators’ spiritual belief system, and their fear of malevolent spirits,
especially of people who die by accident, through violence or while in labor.
The ubiquitous spirit house in almost all Lao homes is there to ward off such evil
spirits. The title character, Chanthaly (played by Amphaiphun Phimmapunya)
was told by her father that her mother had died in childbirth. Chanthaly feels that
her mother’s spirit is now making her presence known to her. The filmmaker
effectively uses all the conventions of the horror movie to portray this communi-
cation with the dead: the creaking door that slowly opens by itself, the flickering
light that comes on and off, the inexplicable knocks, the menacing figure that
emerges from the darkness and disappears, the frightening sequence that turns
out to be a nightmare, and so on.
So why does Chanthaly believe that the spirit is invading her home and trying
to communicate with her? The very first scene of the movie gives us a few clues.
The camera follows a little girl happily skipping alongside her father, in the gar-
den of their home. The warmth of the sun is suddenly altered to an oppressive
and violent light when it floods the kitchen. The little girl opens the back door
of her house, but is quickly ordered by her father to “turn around and cover
[her] eyes.” The spectator sees, in the foreground of the frame shot from the
reverse angle, the legs of a woman hanging from a certain height, an overturned
chair, and a bloody knife lying on the ground. It is clear that the woman has just
taken her own life.
Wrought with tension, this tragic opening scene conflicts with the explanation
provided by the father as to the real cause of the mother’s death. Chanthaly’s
22 P. Norindr

father told her that her mother had a heart condition and died barely an hour
after having given birth to her. Chanthaly inherited her mother’s congenital heart
disease and is in poor health. Any kind of even very mild exertion makes her
dizzy and causes vomiting and shortness of breadth. Fifteen years have passed
since that fateful day and the woman’s suicide, which Chanthaly, unlike the
spectator, does not remember since she only caught a glimpse of the woman.
Spectators assume that she did not understand what really went on. But as a
young adult, she seems to be regaining vague recollections of her mother—
translated in the film by a recurrent shot of herself as a young child lying on a
polka-dotted blanket being comforted by her mother. Chanthaly questions her
father as to why she has memories of her mother when he always asserted that
she had died before she was born. The recall is triggered by haptic memory,
the touch of a soft blanket that she is about to place in the washing machine
and which makes her scrutinize the polka dot pattern. She believes that her
mother used a similar blanket to wrap her up in. These tactile memories elicit
a host of other sentiments and feelings, like the longing for her dead mother
and a desire to communicate with her. Is the ghostly presence that she sees while
working in the house or in the laundry area, at home, real or a figment of her
imagination? Are these visions hallucinations caused by her heart medication
or is the ghost real? The buildup of suspense and horror hinges on this interpret-
ation of the Lao Buddhist belief in the afterlife that co-exists with spirit worship
of phi, or the ghost inherited from animist practices.
As the movie unfolds, the spectator sees the daily routine of the father and
Chanthaly. He leaves for work in his luxurious 4-door Nissan pickup truck early
in the morning. Chanthaly works from home at the laundry business he funded
to keep busy and learn how to be a self-reliant and responsible member of
society. She cleans the home and cooks for him. In short, she takes care of all
the domestic tasks that a traditional Lao woman is expected to do, in spite of
the gender equality that communism was supposed to usher into Lao society.
Her father, played convincingly by the producer Douanmany Soliphanh, expects
her to have dinner ready when he returns home after work. East meets West also
in the way that medicine is introduced. Even though he expects his daughter to
conform to traditional ways—how a reputable young Lao woman should behave
both at home and in the presence of strangers, for instance—the father does not
believe in traditional animist practices like phi worship. Because he has adopted
Western bourgeois ways of life—the camera follows him to the living room as he
leaves the dinner table and continues eating by himself in front of the television
set adjusted to the ESPN channel—he believes that Chanthaly’s ghost sightings
are mere hallucinations caused by an ineffective medication. To help her control
these visions, the father consults a handsome young doctor, Keovisit, who agrees
to come to their home on a medical consultation. The medical house call becomes
a kind of visitation upon which Chanthaly suspects that her father called on him
to confound her and frustrate Thong, the young neighbor, who is attracted to her.
The budding romance between the French-trained doctor and Chanthaly is
used by the director to probe the divide between Eastern and Western cultural
practices and systems of knowledge. Can an illness be more than a disease that
can be cured by medicine or scientific knowledge? How does one make sense
 The Future of Lao Cinema 23

of inexplicable events that do not quite fit our rational world? Does a disease
reveal a larger societal problem? These questions are raised subtly in Do’s movie.
In fact, the filmmaker exploits the tension between Western medical knowledge
and Lao animist beliefs to create a vision of contemporary Laos that must rec-
oncile the traditional with the modern. The movie can be seen as a commentary
on the role women continue to play in Lao society. The gender divide in Lao
society is foregrounded in the movie, in the way Lao women seem to believe
in the existence of the phi, whereas the men in the movie, from the father to
the neighbor and the doctor, dismiss these ghosts as mere superstitions and
old wives’ tales. The revealing exchange between the doctor and Bee, his fiancée,
tells it all:

Doctor: My mother told me that the more you speak to the spirits, the less likely they are
to find peace. You need to let them go.

Bee: You don’t even believe in ghosts.

Doctor: Well, my mother did. My family is full of superstitious daughters who take after
their mothers, realist sons who work hard like their fathers. Our kinds will
probably be the same.

Bee, like her cousin Chanthaly, believes in ghosts. In one of the last scenes of
the movie Bee is shown praying at the altar [Figure 1]. Conspicuously absent
from the shot is the spirit house that was thrown out by an angry father, an
evening when Chanthaly was praying, once again, to her mother’s spirit. In this
scene, Bee exhorts Chanthaly’s ghost: “[I ask you to] leave this house in peace.
Accept these offerings. Find rest and be reborn, in spirit. Please. Move on and
don’t disturb this house. Be at peace. Leave your father in peace. I promise to visit
your father often. I’ll take care of him, and make sure he’s well. You can leave
now, Chan. Don’t worry anymore.” This scene repeats and mirrors the first scene
with the young adult Chanthaly, as she prays at the altar of the spirit house
[Figure 2]:

Figure 1 Screengrab from Mattie Do’s Chanthaly. Bee prays before an absent spirit house. (Photo
courtesy of Lao Art Media)
24 P. Norindr

Figure 2 Screengrab from Mattie Do’s Chanthaly. The spirit house provides solace to a praying
Chanthaly. (Photo courtesy of Lao Art Media)

“I ask you not to disturb my home. Offer guidance. Stay near. Protect us.
Accept these offerings. Amen.”
More than simply framing the story or providing narrative coherence and
closure, the repetition evokes the continued impact of traditional spiritual beliefs
on Lao everyday life, and how these beliefs are transmitted orally from those of
one generation to another, and especially, via the mother. Thong, the neighbor,
had warned Chanthaly that, according to his mother, “the more attention you
give the spirits, the more power they have,” a warning that Chanthaly does
not heed and that costs her dearly. But beyond driving the plot forward, this
inaugural scene of devotion also demarcates a spiritual line: none of the men
in the movie is ever seen praying or paying homage to the spirits. In fact, the
men all seem to devalue native customs and traditions, and have adopted codes
of conduct and moral principles that seem to originate either from Communist
secularism or a blind embrace of modern Western mores and codes of conduct.
To appease the spirits that are haunting the home, Bee would like Keovisit to
intercede with her uncle to urge him to accept having a monk come and bless
the home in a ceremony that would appease the evil spirits:

Bee: You have to convince him. I talked to him, and he won’t listen to me. But maybe, if
you say something, he’ll listen to you.

Doctor: If your uncle doesn’t believe in the ceremony, I’m not going to force him to go to
the temple.

Bee: We could have somebody come to bless the house.

Doctor: You’re over-reacting.

The dialogue reveals a deep chasm between how Lao men and women
embrace the native belief system. In Do’s movie their co-existence does not
trouble the Lao women, but the Lao men seem unable to adjust their response
to the remote possibility of the existence of phi. Communism did not succeed
 The Future of Lao Cinema 25

in eradicating these deeply-rooted animistic beliefs and religious devotional

practices.
The phi seems to have gained increased power over the mortals, which is
conveyed in the film by expanding the field of visual representation of the phi
itself, creating in the spectator a truly frightening experience. For a Western audi-
ence, well versed in horror movies that have become increasingly bloody, this
Lao horror may seem rather tame. But it is precisely the subtle representation
of Lao customs and superstition that resonates with Lao viewers, and makes
Do’s movie an important contribution to moviemaking in Laos. The mother’s
ghost returns more frequently but does not speak or answer Chanthaly’s most
important question, “Did you kill yourself?” The issue of suicide returns with
a vengeance, as Chanthaly feels so hopeless that she swallows all the pills after
a fight with her father, who prevents her from leading a normal life. Suicide
seems to be the only way out. By the end of the movie, we learn that even ghosts
can deceive and lie. For the ghost in the film has now completely invaded the
house and has settled in there.
The mother’s spirit (phi) seems like a hybrid of two well-known phi in the Lao
phi pantheon, Phi Am and Phi Kongkoi. Phi Am is a phi that squats on a victim’s
chest at night and suffocates the victim. It is glimpsed only at night. Young men
are usually the phi’s favorite victims. Phi Kongkoi, the hungry female ghost, is a
spirit that cries out sounds like “kong koi kong koi” … but is never seen. It is recog-
nized by the frightening sounds she mutters as she announces her presence. Is the
spectral presence in the home a good phi or a bad phi? Why is she haunting the
home? What is she trying to communicate to Chanthaly? Mattie Do makes good
use of the Lao belief in supernatural beings to conjure up a world that cannot be
fully explained rationally or scientifically. She relies on the tropes of visibility and
invisibility, seeing and not-seeing, to great effect.
However, Do’s movie does more than frighten its viewers, it raises serious
questions about traditional customs and the position of women in the traditional
family, and the expectations that they should selflessly serve men during their
entire life, first as a dutiful and respectful daughter, then as a faithful wife. She
also seems to be questioning the modern, educated male urbanite who has
rejected perhaps too quickly the complex and rich spiritual world and traditions
in favor of the more stable realm of the rational and the scientific. By removing
the spirit house from his property, as the father does not believe that it fends
off evil spirits but merely reinforces harmful superstitious practices, he creates
an opportunity for the evil spirit to invade his home and harm its occupants.
In fact, in what could be seen as a regressive ending, Chanthaly’s ghost will
continue to haunt the home she shares with her father and remains with him
as his devoted, benevolent phi. She will protect him from the evil ghost that
has previously caused a serious injury to the father—which he explained ration-
ally as having hurt himself when he tripped over the dog in the middle of the
night. This evil ghost has expressed hostile intention toward him if she were to
leave and pass on peacefully to the other world. Traditional gender roles are
re-established at the very end of the film, since it suggests that Chanthaly will
continue to look after her father. Of course, the ending should also be interpreted
as a striking expression of filial love and devotion. But this ending undermines
26 P. Norindr

the more radical reflection on the possible impact on the modern Lao subject of a
loss of native spiritual practices. Even in death, the father continues to restrict
Chanthaly’s freedom.

THE VIOLENT LAO THRILLER: ANYSAY KEOLA’S AT THE HORIZON

The coexistence of tradition and modernity is a question that Anysay Keola

addresses as well in his debut film, At the Horizon. This film by one of the
co-founders of Lao New Wave Cinema Productions is also set in the capital city
of Vientiane, and showcases aspects of daily life that are usually never seen on
screen. At the Horizon is described as a “thriller,” and indeed it gives the
audience a good dose of suspense. The storyline is very simple. A man holds
another man captive, for no apparent reason. They don’t seem to know each
other, further disorienting the audience as to the motive for the violence. The
question of gratuitous violence is a very sensitive subject in Laos and is usually
not condoned by the authorities. The movie opens with the usual disclaimer,
“All names, characters and incidents portrayed in this film are fictitious. Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” There is
an added mention: “Persons younger than 15 are advised to view under
parental guidance.” This parental advice is not an innocuous warning because
of the intensity of the graphic violence that will be shown on screen, something
not commonly seen in Lao cinema or television. The state has censored movies
and television shows for much less than that. One may recall the diplomatic
incident caused by a particular episode of a Thai soap opera series in which a
Thai character threw away a frangipani flower, which was seen by the Lao
PDR government as an unjustifiable trampling on an official symbol of
Laotianness, and was vigorously objected to via diplomatic channels and
censored. So when a gun fight or an illegal street car-racing that ends with
the death of innocent bystanders is allowed on screen, one must ask why such
a scene was not censored by the state.13
The brilliant opening sequence sets the tone and mood for the entire movie. A
panning shot of a dilapidated wall, a room lit by a bare, light bulb, reveals the
face of a man in a close-up shot, who is slowly emerging from an unconscious
state to find himself in an unfamiliar and hostile environment. At the same time
as the audience does, our protagonist discovers that he is tied to a chair, feet and
hands bound, and screams for help. No one responds, until the door opens from
the outside. From the shadows of a rainy night, a man enters the room, and stares
at the man he holds captive, without pronouncing a single word, then leaving
him to wonder why he finds himself in this predicament. Sunlight signals the
passing of time, and the audience begins to discover what really transpired
and why our captive is held against his will. The story unfolds in flashback
and is told, at the beginning, from that man’s perspective. The spectator
gradually learns about his identity. His name is Sin, and he is a university
student. In one important scene, he is admonished by his girlfriend, Mouk,
who questions his commitment to both his studies and his faithfulness to her.
Instead of attending classes, he drives off behind the wheel of a brand new
 The Future of Lao Cinema 27

Cadillac SUV (a rare sight in an impoverished nation like Lao PDR) with his
friend Sak. They are looking for a secluded area where Sin can fire a gun that
Sak has procured illegally. The audience also begins to understand what
links Sin, the student, to his abductor, Lud. We discover that Lud is a simple
motorcycle mechanic, who earns a modest living by doing repairs. He is also
mute but not deaf, as one customer wrongly assumed. But his disability does
not prevent him from having a beautiful, loving wife and young daughter whom
he adores and with whom he communicates through sign language. In a telling
scene with a co-worker, Lud informs him that he prefers to return home to his
family rather than go drinking with him and his buddies. In contrast, Sin behaves
quite irresponsibly. He goes about town, cruising in his luxurious car, music
blaring out of the roll-down windows, quite an uncanny vision on the quiet
streets of the capital city. Such a sight brings local bystanders to poke fun at such
a scene and derisively compare the car to a “disco on wheels.” And in fact, the
“disco on wheel” will transport him to a real nightclub, where Sin attempts to
seduce a pretty young woman he meets at the bar, an unnamed “sexy woman,”
as she is described in the film credits. But of course, Sin gets entangled with a
local hoodlum who does not back off when Sin berates him for accidentally
bumping into him and spilling his drink on his shirt. Sin wants to settle this
difference by fighting but accidentally shoots another gangster, wounding him
in the hand. This action will lead to a short pursuit. Sin is shot but miraculously
escapes certain death when a motorcyclist stumbles onto the scene as he was
about to be executed at close range. The assailant leaves the scene so as not to
be identified by the witness. Rather than helping him, as the audience expects,
the man knocks him out with his helmet. As the film unfolds, the audience
learns the identity of the eyewitness/motorcyclist (Lud) and understands the
motivation for his desire to hurt and kill Sin.
The narrative adopts many of the conventions of the thriller even if the story
does not follow a linear development. Scenes that take place in the present are
intercut with shots from the past, creating the suspense by playing on the spec-
tator’s fear and hope for a different outcome than the one planned by Lud. We
now understand the first scene of the movie and the reasons for Lud’s actions.
He is seeking revenge and wants to kill Sin because Sin killed his wife and daugh-
ter when he hit them with his car while racing. But is Lud really capable of
executing Sin in cold blood? Will he go through with his premeditated plan? Is
Lud a violent murderer? The story, built around archetypical characters like
the good worker, the rich spoiled student, the traditional Lao woman, the
gangster, or the sexy woman, may not appear that inventive, but it allows the
filmmaker to reflect on the clashing values found in contemporary Laos. Sin,
the victim, is not as innocent as he appears to be, just as Lud, the captor, is not
as evil as his actions lead us to believe. Sin behaves recklessly and with complete
disregard for other people’s lives, precisely because he feels entitled by the
position he occupies in Lao society, a social standing not earned through hard
work or his own achievements but acquired through unearned family ties and
affiliation. He keeps asking people, “Do you know who I am or who my dad
is?” as a threat to those who do not respect him and see him as he truly is, an
overindulged bratty young fellow. It is clear that Keola questions the power of
28 P. Norindr

money, its ability to buy influence and bring social conflict, an aspect of the
movie that surely could not have displeased the Communist government.
According to some critics, Keola’s movie provides a vision of modern, contem-
porary Laos in too Manichean a fashion. But he also succeeds in showing the
inequalities that still exist in Laos while probing the social relations that links
all of the people of Laos. This disjunction between the poor and the rich, tradition
and modernity is most originally conveyed via the soundtrack of the movie. Lao
hip-hop music accompanies Sin’s wanderings in the streets of Vientiane and in
the nightclub. The new music props up shots of bodies of young people drinking,
smoking, dancing to the loud, booming music, and swaying to a new beat
[Figure 3].
In stark contrast, traditional Laos is not simply embodied by Lud and his
family but confined in the home and space of domesticity, uncontaminated by
these seemingly corrupting sounds. There is no music track to accompany these
images of domesticity, only the sounds of a television in the background. Lud’s
home is free of all the glitz and glamor of the new, commodified Laos. The
spectator hears the familiar sounds of traditional cooking, the chopping of
vegetables, preparation of staple foods like sticky rice, the soft voices of Lud’s
daughter and wife, the skipping feet of his daughter in her new pink sandals,
or the clatter of utensils and plates that Lud sets up for the evening meal, waiting
for his daughter and wife to return from the store where they went to buy him a
surprise birthday cake.
The spectator is unaccustomed to hearing these new sounds produced by the
youth culture. In Good Morning Luang Prabang the movie was filled with senti-
mental Thai pop music. Incorporating more edgy contemporary Lao rock music
in the soundtrack of At the Horizon is indeed an important innovation introduced
by a Lao New Wave filmmaker like Keola. Until very recently, the government
refused to sanction these new forms of popular music like rock and hip-hop.
But this climate of intolerance is quickly changing. The first Lao Music Awards,
held in 2008,14 signaled the coming of age of a new Lao popular music industry,
which also corresponds with the development and expansion of the film

Figure 3 Screengrab from Anysay Keola’s At the Horizon. Sin parties at the Magic Pub night-
club. (Photo courtesy of Lao New Wave Cinema Production)
 The Future of Lao Cinema 29

industry. Lao Entertainment Awards, or Golden Naka, have been bestowed only
since 2010, in such categories of hip-hop, rhythm and blues, rock, music video,
signaling a wind of change. According to the Lao News Agency, the Golden
Naka was “designed to support the Lao entertainment industry, promote culture
and outstanding work of authors and artists and singers.” It also inscribed the
modern Lao subject in a new space of entertainment. However, somewhat predic-
tably, hip-hop also introduces the viewer to the underworld of violent gangsters
and scantily dressed women.
At the Horizon seems to be wavering between two or three possible endings.
Whereas viewers anticipate a violent end for Sin who arguably should be
punished for his terrible actions, Keola offers the spectators a quite unexpected
ending. It suffices to say here that he is not the one who will meet a very violent
end. In the penultimate scene of the movie, Sin and Mouk drive up to a temple
complex to pray and pay homage to what spectators can assume to be Lud’s final
resting place. Sin places the little girl’s pink sandals at the foot of the stupa and
appears contrite. Nevertheless, the film does not end with this final scene of
religiosity. The last shot [Figure 4] shows Lud riding his motorcycle, with his wife
and daughter, on a country road, disappearing towards the horizon. The scene is
accompanied by the first few bars of “Bard Phae” by the Lao rock group Cells. It
is an enigmatic, positive ending, one that implies the entire family finds happi-
ness in heaven. One may legitimately wonder whether a more affirmative ending
was demanded by the Lao authorities and Keola had to oblige. It seems very
likely.
As was the case with the French New Wave, successful first movies may not
tell the whole story.15 If Chanthaly and At the Horizon promise even better things
to come in Lao cinema, we must wait and see how these gifted filmmakers will
follow through with subsequent features. We can only hope that their next films
will help solidify their place in Lao film culture. Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are
contributing to the fashioning of a modern film industry, expanding film culture
in Laos and transforming its cinematic landscape. They are up to the challenge
and already busy with their next projects. With the critical accolades and

Figure 4 Screengrab from Anysay Keola’s At the Horizon. Lud, his wife and daughter disappear
towards the horizon. (Photo courtesy of Lao New Wave Cinema Production)
30 P. Norindr

international recognition come definite responsibilities. At the vanguard of Lao

cinema, they are in a privileged position to help train the next generation of
Lao filmmakers. And they have fully embraced their new role as trailblazers of
the Lao New Wave. Both Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are busy teaching basic
filmmaking to young students. As an active member of the new “Vientianale
on the road” program,16 Anysay Keola and other members of Lao New Wave
Cinema are giving film workshops to students living in remote small towns such
as Phongsaly, Sam Neua and Oudomxay. Inspiring and developing native talents
will go a long way in buttressing the foundation of a healthy national film
industry. And there are good reasons to be optimistic. Some of the shorts17 that
have won critical accolades in the short film competition at the Vientianale Inter-
national Film Festival, a festival founded in 2009 by Athidxay Boundaoheaung,
Hélène Ouvrard, and Margarete Magiera,18 show real promise. One can mention
Calendar [2011], a short film by Thanavorakit Kounthawatphinyo, winner of
the 2011 Vientianale short film competition, a short that experiments with a
non-linear narrative film form; or Lee Vilayphong Phongsavanh’s Teddy Jay
[2013], a short told from the point of view of a toy bear. These shorts bode well
for the future of a vibrant Laotian cinema and we eagerly await what the future
will bring. Perhaps we will see in the near future more challenging experimental
genres emerge, like the less commercial and more introspective film-essay, that
would seriously challenge the receptiveness of state censors and test the ambition
of Lao New Wave filmmakers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank warmly the editors of this special issue of Visual Anthropology, Lan Duong and Việt Lê, for
inviting me to contribute this article and engaging my work, in the most collegial fashion, with their probing
questions and generous comments. Marina Perez de Mendiola remains my favorite interlocutor, and I am grateful
to her and her sharp intellect. I would also like to acknowledge my USC students and, in particular, Jennifer Smart,
who made my Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinema course such a pleasure to teach in the fall semester of 2016.

NOTES
1. Writing in 1995, Som Ock Southiponh asserted that “Laotian cinema does not exist.
There are no other independent filmmakers in Laos. There are nine of us at Lao-Inter
Art, all of whom left the Ministry of Information and Culture to help form the com-
pany. All of us received our education abroad in such countries as Bulgaria, Russia
and Czechoslovakia. The only thing we can hope for is that through co-production,
meaning 100% foreign financing and 100% Laotian talent, Laotian cinema can keep,
at least momentarily, its artisans active until better days arrive.” In The Films of
ASEAN, edited by Jose F. Lacaba [2000], Laotian cinema does not even figure in the
book. David Hanan’s Film in Southeast Asia: Views from the Region corrected this
omission and included an informative chapter on “Lao Cinema,” written by Bounchao
Phichit, the Director-General of the Department under the Ministry of Information and
Culture. Recently, three essays were devoted to Lao cinema in Margirier and Jimenez’s
volume, Southeast Asian Cinema [2012]: Thi-Von Muong Hane’s “In Search of Laotian
Cinema”; Fanny Boulloud’s “On the Tracks of Film Distribution in Laos”; and my own
“The Emergence of the Laotian Film Industry: A Short Overview” [Norindr 2012].
 The Future of Lao Cinema 31

2. I am referring here to commercial cinema. As Bounchao Phichit writes, “The

Documentary Film Studio of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (a sub-section of
the Cinema Department) produced newsreels and documentary films, on average 5
titles per year.”.
3. The Lao Department of Cinema, under the Ministry of Information and Culture, “Issue
the Permit for establishment [sic] of the Film and Video Production Company both
public and private ones” [Lao Department of Cinema 2016].
4. Lao-ITECC is not only the sole commercial movie theater in the capital city of Vientiane,
it is the only one in all of the Lao PDR. The few privately owned and operated movie
theaters that existed prior to the 1975 Revolution have gone out of business, a swift
decline in exhibition venues accelerated by the advent of new recording technologies
like the VCR, DVD player, and today satellite television and streamed media.
5. Anysay Keola’s debut film, At the Horizon, a violent thriller that pushed the boundaries
of what the Lao government would ultimately tolerate on film, is available on demand
on Vimeo [Lao New Wave Cinema Productions 2013]. Mattie Do’s Chanthaly was
available for download as part of her crowd-funding campaign for Nong hak/Dearest
Sister. This on-line distribution allows these movies to reach a wide audience,
including members of the Lao diaspora scattered worldwide.
6. Lao Inter Arts, the oldest private production company, was founded by the filmmaker
Som Ock Southiponh.
7. Mattie Do created a short film to solicit funds for her next project on the crowd-
funding platform IndieGogo. Her entry into the world of cinema began as a
professional make-up artist in the United States, but since 2010, when she established
residency in Laos, she has turned to filmmaking fulltime and contributes actively to
the artistic and creative life in Laos. She has already been called upon to judge the
work of the next generation of young filmmakers, and participates in film training
workshops even as she herself continues her own training. She was among ten
filmmakers selected as part of “La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde 2014,” during
the Cannes Film Festival, which enabled her to participate in various fora and learn
about various aspects of filmmaking and production. She was also selected as one
of the ten international participants in the Talent Lab for emerging filmmakers at
the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, gaining more inside knowledge from
industry professionals like the famed French director Claire Denis, Black Swan director
Darren Aronofsky, and the British Director Mike Leigh.
8. Lao Art Media produced The Chase, a multi-series car commercial promoting the
American manufacturer Chevrolet, and featuring Miss Laos 2012, Christina
Lasasimma.
9. Thai film critic Kwai encapsulated Keola’s movie in these terms: “Nightclubs, luxury
automobiles, smoking, drinking, men wearing earrings, car chases, and gun violence—
that are usually not depicted in Lao media because of strict censorship.”
10. These non-Lao filmmakers may be in a better position to help them identify potential
foreign co-producers or sponsors and navigate the arcane network of public
funding from governmental or state sources, thus improving the prospect of finding
co-sponsors.
11. According to the Thai film critic Kwai, “The first draft was banned. ‘But we didn’t give
up,’ Anysay said after the screening at the Lifescapes event hosted by Chiang Mai’s
Payap University. He approaches the authorities again and explained that it was a
‘student film’ and would only be shown to his academic advisor at Chula. With that
caveat, his request to start production was granted.”
12. “A Future Laollywood” was the wistful title of an interview with Anysay
Keola, penned by Chanida Phaengdara Potter, one of the co-founders (with Danny
32 P. Norindr

Khotsombath and editor Bryan Thao Worra) and current Editor-in-Chief of the
wonderful blog, Little Laos on the Prairie.
13. Instead of drawing on this type of scene to entertain, the Lao state would use such a
tragic event as a tool to educate its citizens on the very real dangers of illegal car racing
in the streets.
14. The government’s support for new Lao music is rather sporadic. The second Lao
Music Awards was held in 2011, three years after the inaugural event.
15. Box office receipts of both Chanthaly and At the Horizon have revealed the popularity of
these films with the Lao people.
16. “Vientianale on the road is a series of mobile screenings of new Lao short and feature
films in the remote areas of the Lao PDR. It is a new feature of Vientianale film festival
and its goal is to bring aesthetically demanding films to the rural population of
Lao PDR and to encourage local film production. […] Prior to the film screenings,
experienced Lao filmmakers from Lao New Wave Cinema are sharing their skills with
young Lao people in basic filmmaking workshops. The workshops will work with
basic equipment such as simple cameras or mobile phones and deal with the topic
of ‘Life’” [Vientianale on the Road 2014].
17. Even before garnering critical accolades for his debut feature film, At the Horizon,
Anysay Keola demonstrated his skills as a storyteller and filmmaker as a student of
film at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. His short film, A Little Change [2011],
demonstrates the skills and conviction of a budding filmmaker, a confidence in his
technique, and an ability to tell a story that would draw the audience in.
18. Much more should be said of the incredible work done by the founders of such film
festivals as the Vientianale and the Luang Prabang Film Festival. They have devoted
much energy to promoting Lao cinema and introducing cinema in more remote parts
of the country. Unfortunately, this all falls outside the scope of this essay; [Magiera
2014].

REFERENCES

Hanan, David (ed.)

2001 Film in Southeast Asia: Views from the Region. Essays on Film in Ten South East Asian Pacific
Countries. Hanoi: SEAPAVAA.
Lacaba, Jose F. (ed.)
2000 The Films of ASEAN. Quezon City: ASEAN-COCI.
Lao Department of Cinema
2016 Lao Department of Cinema; <http://www.doc.gov.la/information_en.php?cas1=10>.
Lao New Wave Cinema Productions
2013 At the Horizon (English Subtitled, Uncensored). Vimeo, April 3; <https://vimeo.com/
ondemand/atthehorizon> (accessed 22 June 2015).
Magiera, Margarete
2014 Spot Light On; Lights, Camera, Action—Vientiane’s New Generation of Young Filmmakers.
Sabaidee Lifestyle & Travel, 3(17): 22–23.
Norindr, Panivong
2012 The Emergence of the Laotian Film Industry: A Short Overview. In Southeast Asian Cinema.
Gaëtan Margirier and Jean-Pierre Jimenez, eds. Pp. 243–249. Lyon: Asiexpo Édition.
Potter, Chanida
2013 A Future Laollywood: Q&A with Anysay Keola of Lao New Wave Cinema Productions.
Little Laos on the Prairie, March 18; <http://littlelaosontheprairie.org/2013/03/18/a-
future-laollywood-qa-with-anysay-keola-of-lao-new-wave-cinema-productions>.
 The Future of Lao Cinema 33

Southiponh, Som Ock

1997 Starting an Asian Cinema: Laos Past and Present. Yamagata International Documentary Film
Festival, DocBox 12; <http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/12/box12-3-e.html>.
Thao Worra, Bryan
2013 Lao Horror, Lao Hopes: 10 Questions with Mattie Do. Little Laos on the Prairie, January 18;
<http://littlelaosontheprairie.org/2013/01/18/lao-horror-lao-hopes-10-questions-with-
mattie-do>.
Vientianale on the Road
2014 Vientianale on the Road; <http://www.vientianale.org/sabaidee/ontheroad/> (accessed 2
Dec. 2014).
Vinnaly
2013 International Film Festival Opened in Vientiane. Lao News Agency; <http://kpl.gov.la/EN/
Default.aspx>.

FILMOGRAPHY

Deenan, Sakchai (dir.)

2008 Sabaidee Luang Prabang (Good Morning, Luang Prabang). Laos/Thailand; color, 93 mins.
Do, Mattie (dir.)
2012 Chanthaly. Laos: Lao Art Media; color. 109 mins.
2016 Nong Hak (Dearest Sister). Laos; color, 101 mins.
Keola, Anysay (dir.)
2012 A Little Change. Laos; color 11 mins.
2012 At the Horizon. Laos: Lao New Wave Cinema Production; color, 101 mins.
Phongsavanh, Lee Vilayphong
2013 Teddy Jay. Laos; color, 6 mins.
Southiphonh, Som Ock
1988 Bua Deng (Red Lotus). Laos; color, 81 mins.