The children of Laos
Even if the first Laotian film, Fate of the Girl, dates from 1960, it is considered that the Laotian 7th art is first and foremost intimately linked to the history of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the Indochinese conflict. In 1977, the work Le Printemps, is the first work shot in Laos after the ascent of the Lao Pathet. This propaganda film was however entirely made in China (in Beijing), with Chinese technicians but Laotian actors. Among the fictions made since 1975 are Boa Deng(Red Lotus, 1987) by independent director Som Ock Southiponh and Gun Voice from the Plain of Jars (1983). There are also documentaries, such as The Betrayal-Nerakhoon, directed by Lao-American filmmaker Thavisouk Phrasavath in partnership with Ellen Kuras. This documentary won an Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary category in 2009. Laotian viewers, for their part, are fond of Thai and international films (which must be dubbed in Lao). The Lao-Thai co-production Sabaidee Luang Prabang(Hello Luang Prabang), is the first Lao film of the communist era to be produced entirely with private funds. This romantic comedy directed in 2008 by Anousone Sirisackda and Sakchai Deenan tells the love story of a Thai tourist with his Laotian guide. But the producers are betting mainly on Thai audiences, as there are almost no cinemas in Laos. The hero of the film and the director are Thai. Following the success of the latter, two sequels were shot: From Pakse with Love and Lao Wedding, mainly in southern Laos. More recently, we notice the Lao-American Mattie Do, the first and only director from Laos. The filmmaker is directing her first Chanthaly film, in 2012. Chanthaly is the first horror film written and directed entirely in Laos. Mattie Do went on to direct Dearest Sister (2016), the first film that Laos nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars (however, the film failed to win the nomination). Finally, in 2019, Do directed The Long Walk and won Best Director at the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival.
Lao Festivals
In 2009, the first Vientiane International Film Festival is held thanks to Lao-German cooperation and the support of the German Embassy. During this festival, the public is invited to discover various short films, films and documentaries by Laotian and foreign directors. The aim is above all to promote Lao culture, to encourage local filmmakers to make films and to bring Lao cinema up to the same level as that of other Southeast Asian countries. The second edition of the festival takes place in March 2011 and confirms the success of the first edition. For the 2012 edition, the organisers are launching two competitions: the Best Short Film Award on the theme "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow" and the Best Emerging Filmmaker Award for budding directors. The third edition in February 2013 is a great success. At the end of 2013, the Vientianale is "on the road" for a new project! For three months, a team travels the roads of Northern Laos to present short films to the local population. In 2018, no subject is imposed, but as always it will be necessary to be resident in Laos to participate and shoot a subject on the country. Every December, the former royal capital hosts the Luang Prabang Film Festival, organized with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture and Information. This event honours South-East Asian cinema. Screenings take place in unusual locations: night market, the governor's residence, the National Museum, theFrench Institute (Franco-Lao cultural centre). In 2011, more than 20 films from Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Vietnam and even Myanmar will be presented to the general public. The aim of this festival is to "stimulate film production in Laos and to launch educational materials on cinema in order to attract Laotian youth to these still little-known professions". The festival continues to be a growing success both for the organizers and sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Heineken who contribute a lot to the success of the festival. The winner of the 2017 edition is Redha, a Malaysian film recounting the difficulties of a family raising their autistic son.
Internationally
In 2002, Frenchman Patrick Bernard directed the documentary Bun Lan Xang. It tells the story of the spirit world in Laos. Like many Thais, Laotians believe in spirits and practice the ceremony of "calling back souls"(bai si suu khwan). This ancestral ritual is meant to preserve a person's psychic integrity and usually takes place during a decisive life event. Four years later, another Frenchman, Alain Mazars, takes Laos as the subject of a documentary in Phi pop. The narrator conducts an investigation in Laos that turns into an initiatory journey among outcasts endowed with magical powers: evil creatures or Phi pop. In 2009, Philippe Cosson directed La Pluie du diable, a poignant documentary about the damage that the thousands of cluster bombs dropped by the Americans on Laos during the Vietnam War still cause today. Finally, in the documentary genre, Daniel Rintz passes through Laos during his trip around the world by motorcycle in Somewhere Else Tomorrow (2014). On the fiction side, the American director Werner Herzog adapts the true story of Lieutenant Dieter Dengler (camped by Christian Bale) in Rescue Dawn, in 2006. Dengler, a U.S. naval aviator, was sent on a mission to Laos in 1966. Hit in mid-air, he was captured by the Pathet Lao army. Christian Bale, who is adept at physical transformations to get into his character's skin, lost 20 kg during the shooting. More recently, let us quote The Rocket (2013, by Kim Mordaunt) recounting the adventures of a "cursed" young man whose family is forced to move to Laos, and Rider (2015, Jamie M. Dagg) where young John Lake, an American doctor in Laos, is accused of murdering the assailant of a young girl that Lake saved.
