BFF to 9FF

Since my early years I have  been captivated by films. They were the first experiences that my parents controlled and banned me from seeing.  I remember talk at the dinner table  about whether or not it would be appropriate to bring the children to see “Bonnie & Clyde”  Violence, sex, moral dishonor!  “The Godfather” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” also drew warnings.  The more parents didn’t want us to see, the more we wanted to.

I watched those movies and didn’t feel they changed me, my values or personality.  I saw them as art, creativity and talent.  I was hooked and wanted to see more. They increased my vision.

I received my B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Richmond.  This was quite a myopic experience.  From open vision of films, I went to a Baptist affiliated university, that was dry of alcohol and had female and male campuses blocked by a lake.  This became my education sanctuary and led me to graduate in 3 ½ years instead of 4.  I felt chained to a boarding school.  However, accelerated graduation, offered me a job with IBM as a Systems Engineer in the National Accounts Division.  Working on the Federal Reserve Bank and Sovran Bank provided good training for my future.

I enjoyed to travel on my vacation time and saw so much in the world.  I was hooked on learning.  I may not have time to get on a plane to see the world, but films could bring the world to me.

Oliver Stone enlightened me to subjects that I knew little about.  Films like Salvador and Platoon opened my eyes to the world, how little we knew, and took me for an adventure with sights and sounds I had never experienced.  Oliver had political/social messages to tell and he told it brilliantly through his camera lens.

I made a decision to leave IBM and travel the world.  Being stuck in an office, was not fulfilling.  I began my travel in Greece, working through to India and Nepal, where I trekked through Thorong La Pass.  Final destination was Bangkok, Thailand.

Throughout my life, I have been concerned about what we are doing to our natural resources.  I was called by film to capture these serious environmental/social issues.

This led to me shooting and producing documentaries: “Thailand for Sale,” “Green Menace: The Untold Story of Golf,” and “Casino Cambodia.”  The films were well received and I was invited to Film Festivals. I had no idea at the time what a film festival was.   However, after being invited to screen our films, I saw the power of such events.  I saw films that I would never have the opportunity to see in theaters or even TV.  My eyes were opened to new worlds.

I saw two roads of action to take.  I could shoot films or I could create a festival to host the screenings of films.  While shooting films is a rewarding experience, it is also gut-wrenching and intense.  The final reward is your finished film, your baby, of which you cradle in your arms and are so proud.  It is a magical experience, highly rewarding and satisfying.  In a similar way mothers go through  months of pregnancy, then are rewarded with their new unique offspring.

The other road, is not the making of the film (baby), but instead being in the maternity ward of the hospital (festival) which will bring the films out into the open world.  However, in this case, the festival, does not deal with just one film, but serves as the epicenter to screen and share many films (newborns).  As a film festival director, one can present and capture the best of many filmmakers and collect them to screen for a wide, interested audience, who yearn for films outside the normal spectrum.

In 1998, I made the decision to start the first international film festival in Bangkok.  I felt lucky that I had been given the gift to attend film festivals, show my film, and meet interesting filmmakers and audience members.  That experience made me feel wanted, recognized and privileged, and  I wanted to return that same feeling to other filmmakers and members of the audience who desire to see new perspectives. It is unusual to start a film festival with zero experience.  I was only a visitor at other festivals, never knowing what was involved setting one up.  It didn’t seem at the time, much of a challenge–find some films, invite them, screen them!  Was I naïve!

The process of a film festival doesn’t start with finding films.   First one needs sponsorship to set up an office and pay expenses.  It is not an easy task to create an event that has never been done in Bangkok and ask for its sponsorship. The sponsors want to know about the organizer’s experience (filmmaking and film festival management).  It was quite difficult to sell film festival management, when I had none.  However, not having experience made me reflect on and realize I could do a film festival as this mission became my passion.  What I didn’t have in proven skills, I had as a mission, to learn, tackle problems, and succeed.  I wanted to bring an extraordinary event to Bangkok!

I was fortunate to have friends to support and assist me during the difficult times of startup.  Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol understood film festivals and their cultural worth.  Prince Chatri gave his own time to assist me in gaining Thai Film Federation support to hold a festival.  The Federation did not want to have “outside films” shown in Thailand, using Federation member theatres and offering more film product to audiences.  However,  Prince Chatri enabled us to overcome barriers and  were given permission to hold Bangkok’s first Film Festival.  We were blessed to be able to hold the festival in the Brand New UA multiplex which opened in the Emporium shopping centre.  It was a beautiful theatre (at the time this was the most spectacular theatre in Bangkok); the boom in theatres would not start for another couple of years.

Sponsorship support came through the sales efforts of the Nation Multimedia Group.  Khun Aeumsree Boonhachairat was the manager at the time and found support to fund our festival.  It was great to have the support of an English language newspaper to provide communications.  In 1999, the first year of the Bangkok Film Festival, we had crowds of 16,000 people.  Everyone was quite shocked, that “unknown, fringe” films could draw in such an audience.  The second year, we drew in 18,000 and the third year reached 20,000 festivalites.

After starting the original Bangkok Film Festival, the Film Festival genre expanded in Bangkok.  The Nationmultimedia group carried on with World Film Festival of Bangkok and the Tourism Authority of Thailand started the Bangkok International Film Festival.

Suddenly, “Film Festival” became a cherished title.  The Bangkok International Film Festival was well funded, with estimates of over 260 million baht.  It was the headline festival, based more on the huge budget, as opposed to the essence of a true film festival, which is the showing of independent, unknown; filmmakers in-the-making.

Korea’s Pusan film festival is a good example of a festival loved by both filmmakers and audience.  Pusan does not screen many, if any, “Hollywood” or “Celebrity” films, yet this festival opens doors and provides contacts for the film industry in Asia.  Pusan also provides excellent funding programs for script and film development.

The Bangkok International Film Festival was funded with an enormous budget (estimates of over 260 million baht), and received excellent coverage and attention.  The festival caught the attention of the Thai industry, asking why the management of the festival was outsourced abroad.  The answer came out when the FBI indicted two Americans for violations of the foreign corruption practices act  (in laymen’s terms – bribery).  The festival was truly “international,” money was wired to different bank accounts in several countries.  The indictments also involved Thailand as well.

Thailand’s  Juthamas Siriwan, 63, the former governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, and her daughter, Jittisopa Siriwan, 31, were indicted in January this year. A federal grand jury charged them with eight counts of conspiracy to launder money, transporting funds to promote unlawful activity, and aiding and abetting. The Department of Justice is also seeking criminal forfeiture against them.

What we had in Thailand was an indicted film festival that drew more interest from the audience and media to the whereabouts of the yet prosecuted former Governor Siriwan.  The time had come for a change of venue in Bangkok.

While Pusan and Rotterdam film festivals have names for supporting filmmakers, Bangkok International Film Festival earned its name as “kick-back fest.”  So the history of film festivals, took a sordid turn.  I pulled Bangkok Film Festival out of the running, as sponsorship dried up and true film festival essence was lost.

However, my own passion for films and festivals did not fade away.  Bangkok needed something new; fresh to fit our times and changes in our lifestyles.   My personal film philosophy was influenced by incredible documentaries that were making their mark and changing the world, from “Supersize Me” (which forced McDonald’s to stop selling super-sized sodas and meals)  to  “An Inconvenient Truth” (which brought global warming to the world’s attention), and Michael Moore’s “Sicko” (which might have helped pass the national health bill in America).

While  documentaries are on the rise, they are not popular enough yet to start a documentary film festival.  What is interesting these days is short films!  From Youtube, to watching videos on Facebook, we live in the “short” World.  Our cell calls are short, the video we take with our Black Berry is short, we even watch short films on the BTS.  Therefore, why not start a short film festival in Bangkok?

That is a great idea, but we need a short film festival that will be unique and open to all aspiring filmmakers.  A festival that is simple yet stimulates creativity and can be seen by the masses.

Much thought went into setting up 9FilmFest.  It is like shooting a feature film.  A first feature film by an independent filmmaker.  A script must be written (in this case, the festival plan and strategy).  Then sponsors need to be found to fund the festival.  I cannot express the strife that is involved in this financial challenge.  The closet analogy would be climbing Mount Everest. Despite so many uncontrollable factors and it’s sheer difficulty,  you climb always determined to reach the top.

The first difficulty is selling the concept.  Who will back a new, short film festival, with only films 9 minutes or less? Especially when one has never been held in Thailand?  The sponsors ask what makes us think we can put together such a festival?  It has never been done before.   Well, fortunate for me, I started the first international film festival here in Bangkok in 1998.  I proved it could be done.  To further show that 9FilmFest would take off, we were able to form an advisory board of top film industry people, MC Chatri Chalerm Yukol , Nonzee Nimibutr , Pen ek Ratanarueng, Jareuk Kalijareuk , Chalida Uabumrungjit , and Michael Shaowanasai .  We had strong support structure.

The time came to call friends and together, to brainstorm a solution to allow 9FilmFest to hatch.  A good friend, John Lamond, a filmmaker who had screened his film at one of my festivals, was now working at Leo Burnett.  He brought the concept to his management and they saw it as a great event to propose to their clients.  They liked it so much, that they wanted to be organizers too.  This acceptance by Leo Burnett and his team behind the project felt so good.

Next step was to find sponsors for the event and make it happen.  We set up meetings with sponsors to fund our festival.  From my perception, there were positive vibes shown and an eagerness to join the festival.   Everything looked so great.  We had left base camp and began our ascent to the top. We were going to bring 9FilmFest to Bangkok!

Suddenly, a political storm blew in and destroyed our climb!  On Everest, it’s gale force winds, freezing temperatures, and snow blizzards.  In Bangkok, the storm was known as the Red Shirts.  Just as we were moving along, the business community shut down, panic and concern for the future of Thailand took precedence.   It looked like no one wanted to plan anything for the future.  Boom, we were facing shut-down.  Leo Burnett had to vacate their offices and set up temp quarters.  With the economic freeze, Leo Burnett respectively withdrew.  Now, I was half way up the mountain, what do I do?  Pack up, give up and go down?  Or make another attempt?

I had invested money and over a year in time planning for the festival, so I decided I would try again.  Fortunately, the Red Shirts had been evicted and everything was starting to return to normal.

We needed communications, so I visited the Bangkok Post newspaper.  The meeting with Khun Supakorn Vejjajiva, President, was successful and 9FilmFest was recharged again.  This time Post Publishing would be the organizer of the event and also assist in finding sponsors.  We now had a powerful media company on board.  The Tourism Authority of Thailand also saw it as an event to draw interest in Thailand.  9FilmFest was also able to secure sponsorship from MCOT (Mass communication organization Thailand) because they are channel 9 on the TV.   “9” is a lucky number!  The other sponsors joining our event include BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Authority), SONY, AIS, SF Cinema and Singha. I am excited to see if any visiting tourists will also submit any short films!

It was good to work on the team to bring 9FilmFest to fruition and make it happen.  Of course, it was a battle and a lot of work, but the ultimate reward will be the outlet for everyone to tell us their stories.

We look forward to seeing you at 9FilmFest on 28 May 2011.  This will be a free outdoor event, with live bands to take us through the afternoon and night.  In the evening you will see the 9 Finalist films and the awards ceremony.  Enjoy!