I had a chance to get to know the work of UNESCO Thailand after joining their consultation workshop in January 2020 (which I wrote about in an earlier post). Since then the UNESCO Thailand and its partners organized two other events under the project “Mobilizing film professionals for regional cooperation in Asia – Thailand component” which I joined as a participant. 

One of which is an event in December 2020 at the Thai Film Archive with various participants to discuss the aspect of film policy and legacity in relation to cinema. The team, led by film professionals and scholars (my contacts are Cattleya Paosrijaroen, Kissada Kamyoung and Vorakorn Ruetaivanichkul) also gathered reflections on film culture and industry development through the means of a recorded interview in October 2020. The output is a series of interviews which can be found in the project YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@yoongco.

All of these activities are part of the larger project which runs across Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia called 'Mobilizing film professionals for regional cooperation in Asia' with the support of the government of Japan. On 14 March 2023, UNESCO Vietnam organized a regional-scale event, which I had an opportunity to attend virtually. Professionals, scholars and policy makers from these countries (as well as representatives from Denmark and the UK) shared their views on policy directions and their own experiences working and trying to support the growth of their respective local film industries. Lots of food for thoughts and more collaborations to be built base on this network in the future!

More on this project see: https://en.unesco.org/creativity/activities/mobilizing-film-professionals-regional-cooperation-asia