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South Korea’s Bucheon International Film Festival (Bifan), Asia’s largest genre film festival, has announced 40 official selections from 29 countries for this year’s Naff project market.

The 19 titles selected for the It Project strand include director Khavn De La Cruz’s Philippines project 100 Midget Zombie Cannibals, produced by Achinette Villamore and Stephan Holl, and director Mattie Do’s Laos-Spain co-production The White King, produced by Annick Mahnert and Douangmany Soliphanh, as well as director Quentin Lee’s US project How To Talk With Spirits which he is also producing.

Three years after her first feature, Mattie Do comes back with “Dearest Sister”. The movie was the Laotian representative in the run for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 2017 Academy Awards.

Ana is living with Jakob. The wealthy couple are settled in Vientiane, capital city of Laos. The married woman is losing her sight. Since then, she sometimes enters in contact with spirits. Nok, an unknown cousin, leaves her home village and boyfriend behind to help out Ana in the big city.

The relationship between the two cousins evolves and fluctuates. As Nok tries to fit in the capital, she tries to fit in her new family. If it was hard at first for her to find her place, she quickly becomes irreplaceable (#Beyonce) and necessary to Ana. Their bond gets stronger but also more complicated. Nok is using Ana’s visions to win the lottery. Ana finds out...

Lao-American filmmaker Mattie Do will be part of the 2019 International Jury of the Far East Film Festival’s White Mulberry Award. Chanthaly is her mixed-genre first feature.

Chanthaly is a 20-something years old woman. She has a heart problem, making her take medicines and forbidding her to leave the house. The young stay-at-home daughter has been raised by her father, as her mother died in childbirth. She starts seeing her mother’s ghost and having flash-backs, which leads her to question her life story.

“Chanthaly” is hard to define and never takes the expected path, which makes it even more interesting.

Do’s film definitely has a touch of horror with the mother’s ghost. At first, the object of fear (the phantom) is suggested and not shown, in a very “X-Files” way. It evolves to being clearly revealed on screen. The development of the dead’s mother spirit is actually noteworthy.

Elevation Pictures will be releasing Jamie M. Dagg's Laos set thriller River on March 4th. They have just released the full trailer for the flick and it gives just a taste of the intensity this film has.In the south of Laos, an American volunteer doctor becomes a fugitive after he intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman. When the assailant's body is pulled from the Mekong River, things quickly spiral out of control. River stars Rossif Sutherland of the Clan Sutherland, Vithaya Pansringarm (Only God Forgives) and Douangmany Soliphanh (Mattie Do's Chantalay and upcoming Dear Sister). Mattie was also the Laos producer and our own Todd Brown is an executive producer. ...

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Hey, I get it. You see something bad going down, your first instinct is to help. That's a good thing, a humane reaction, something we tell our children that they should do. But sometimes, maybe you should mind your own damn business. That's the feeling I get from watching the first teaser for River, directed by Jamie Dagg. The movie's official synopsis sets it up: In the south of Laos, an American volunteer doctor becomes a fugitive after he intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman. When the assailant's body is pulled from the Mekong River, things quickly spiral out of control. Rossif Sutherland stars as the doctor, with Amphaiphun Phimmapunya and Douangmany Soliphanh (both from Chanthaly) in supporting roles. Mattie Do, director of Chanthaly, served...

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