Pétanque: Legacies of a secret war (2024)

The Songs of Rice

In Thailand, a hymn to rice need not always be sung. A dance, or spectacular homemade fireworks can say the same thing. As can a film, as is convincingly demonstrated by this lyrical, beautifully filmed homage to this essential staple food.

Silenced Shakespeare

After a 25-year battle with Thai censorship, a filmmaker discusses the value of art in society.

Century of Smoke

Laosan, a young family man, spends all his time smoking opium. For his community, lost in the heart of the Laotian jungle, opium farming is the only way to survive. But opium is also the poison that puts men to sleep and kills their desires.

Bomb Harvest

Laos: the most bombed country, per capita, on the planet. Australian bomb disposal specialist Laith Stevens has to train a new young "big bomb" team to deal with bombs left from the US "Secret War", but meanwhile, the local children are out hunting for bomb scrap metal. Vividly depicting the consequences of war with the incredible bravery of those trying to clear up the mess.

Katoey

Katoey meets three people in rural Thailand who are clearly and confidently women even though their bodies are male. Integrated to an impressive degree into society, these women have successfully overcome the difference between their physical and mental genders.

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

Co-directed by acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras and subject Thavisouk Phrasavath, this haunting documentary chronicles a refugee family’s epic journey from Laos in the aftermath of the secret war waged by the United States there to New York, where they find themselves fighting a different kind of war on the streets of Brooklyn. Filmed over the course of 23 years, THE BETRAYAL is a visually and emotionally stunning look at the complex ways in which the political shapes the personal.

Les singes qui voulaient voir la mer

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A.W. A Portrait of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Canadian actor and filmmaker Connor Jessup (Closet Monster, Falling Skies) profiles Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a maverick of Thai cinema who explores the slippery nature of time and consciousness with a sublimely idiosyncratic, often surreal approach to film form.

6 Weeks to Mother's Day

150 underprivileged and orphaned students in the remote jungle of Thailand attending the country's first democratic school prepare a special celebration to honor their remarkable adoptive mother on Mother's Day.

When Elephants Were Young

A young man and his young elephant street beg in gritty Bangkok amid the controversial elephant business that threatens their survival, until the opportunity comes to release the elephant to the wild.

Weltreise mit Buddha

The Odd Monk is a personal journey through modern day Buddhism. German first time Filmmaker Jesco Puluj travels around the world, meeting a variety of monks and nuns to discover the essence of Buddhism.

Koh kood

A young lad solo traveling to the end of Thailand hidden Gem Island known as Koh Kood. A fiery of storms and uncontrollable waves appear while departing off this island after a couple of nights of unimaginable paradise, beautiful landscapes, sceneries and breathtaking adventures.

The Most Secret Place on Earth

After 30 years of conspiracy theories and myth making, this film uncovers the story of the CIA's most extensive clandestine operation in the history of modern warfare: The Secret War in Laos, which was conducted alongside the Vietnam War from 1964 -1973. While the world's attention was caught by the conflict in Vietnam, the CIA built the busiest military airport in the world in neighboring and neutral Laos and recruited humanitarian aid personnel, Special Forces agents and civilian pilots to undertake what would become the most effective operation of counterinsurgency warfare. As the conflict in Vietnam grew, the objective in Laos changed from a cost effective low-key involvement to save the country from becoming communist into an all-out air war to cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail and bomb Laos back into the Stone Age that it had never really left in the first place. Conventional bombs equivalent to the destructive power of 20 Hiroshima-type weapons fell on Laos each year - 2 million tons