Resurrected Bangkok International Film Festival levels up for its 2026 Edition

The BIFF has a long history, having been first launched in 2003, attracting the top names in Hollywood and creating a reputation as one of the best international film festivals in the region. Corruption charges forced it to shut down in 2009. However, it was resurrected last year, after a 15-year break, with the support of the Thai government and the newly formed Thacca (Thailand Creative Culture Agency).

The second edition this year has levelled up, bringing back the glory of the early editions. The film festival was fully supported by the ministry of culture and the department of cultural promotion with very lofty aims.

Those aims included becoming the largest film festival in Southeast Asia, both in terms of the number of films screened and the variety of activities hosted. The goal was to establish Thailand as a cinema hub in the region. Another major aim was to globalise the Thai film industry. In fact, the theme of the 2026 Bangkok International Film Festival was “Connecting Stories, Creating Opportunities”, signifying its focus to project Thai films and make global connections.

Thai culture minister Saida Thaiseth particularly referred to this objective of her ministry at the opening of the festival. This was reiterated by Thai Princess Ubolratana who stated, “Let us build a bridge between Thailand and the world.”

If the 2026 BIFF managed to build many bridges, much credit must go to the soft-spoken but super-selective director of the festival, Donsaron Kovitvanicha. He had a splendid range of genres, viz., classics, retrospectives, features, animations and documentaries. The director informed all that he had selected varied genres of films, to reach out to a wider audience.

“I want a space for a wide variety of people,” he stated. One was indeed impressed to see a wide variety of audiences in the six cinemas across the city, where the BIFF films were screened, totally free. It was particularly heartening to see the youth flocking to the movies, a new phenomenon which immensely pleased the festival director.

Donsaron travelled to the top festivals of the world to handpick his films. In addition, he served on the prestigious Critics Week Jury of the Cannes Festival this year. This accounted for many brilliant movies from this section of the Cannes Festival, being screened at the Bangkok film festival. An important seminar at the festival featured Thomas Rosso, the programmer of the Critics Week section. This is the section that screens the first and second films of a new director. Rosso told this writer that he is always looking for new talents from India, especially from the many film schools there. The president of his Critics Week Jury this year was Indian director Payal Kapadia, whose movie All We Imagine as Light won an award at Cannes last year

Another important seminar at this year’s BIFF dealt with co-productions. It was called Fostering a Consolidation of Asian Film Talents, Markets and Industries, on the Global Stage. The idea was to discover how collaborations and co-productions could connect Asian cinema to the global stage.

This was part of the BIFF’s aim to establish Thailand as a cinema hub in the region and connect film professionals in Thailand and Asia, with the international community.

There were many other activities at the festival: a seminar promoting Thailand as a perfect location for foreign film shootings, a project pitching session which featured 10 Asian projects, including one from India, and various workshops.

An important section was the Talad Nang Film Market, with nearly 30 international buyers who interacted with 10 Thai production houses.

With so many activities, it was tough to see as many movies as one wanted but I managed to see some unique and exciting movies: Nagi Notes from Japan, The Station from Yemen, Filipinana from Philippines, Benimania from Rwanda and Congo Boy from Congo, besides others. If I had one complaint, it was that the small festival brochure with the extra-small print did not match the mega-film festival, and that slowed my pace somewhat.

There was an impressive range of short films, too, which featured a film from India, Tushar Jain’s Song of My Mother’s Soul.

The opening film, 9 Temples to Heaven, set the mood for the festival, with its marvellous visuals, diverse characters and strong theme. The Thai film which premiered at Cannes, has been to nearly 17 festivals around the world. Director Sompot Chidgasornpongse hoped it would be seen in India, too, and its story of devotion would certainly appeal to Indian audiences.

Another Thai film that created an impact was First Cuts Are the Deepest, directed by an academic who teaches film at the prestigious Chulalongkorn University, Sopawan Boonnimitra, and her husband Peerachai Kerdsint. The docu film focuses on the early learning years of children in schools, and one was pleasantly surprised to see a Satya Sai School figure in it (they have one in Thailand). Director Sopavan stated, “We were looking for schools with different educational philosophies, and the Satya Sai School stood out, because its idea of education seemed to go beyond academic achievements.”

BIFF had a strong focus on Asian and Asean cinema. The movie that won the top Grand Prix award was Elephants in the Fog, the debut feature of Abinash Bikram Shah from Nepal, which was the first Nepali movie to win an award at Cannes. The Best Asean Film award and New Voices Award went to Ah Girl from Singapore, and the Best Artist Performance went to Fan Bingbing from China.

While the opening film was from Thailand, the closing film was the spectacular wuxia film from Singapore, The House on the Moon.

The red-carpet stars at the opening and closing events featured well-known artistes from the Asian region.

As to the relative lack of Indian films this year, compared to the five screened last year, the festival director confessed that it was due to the clash of dates with other major festivals.

But he said he would make up for it next year. He was keen to visit a film festival in India, and one certainly hopes the globe-trotting BIFF director will do so.

To this writer, the most important feature of the BIFF, apart from its grand gala of film and film-related activities, was that it brought together the various segments of the Thai film industry in a rare show of camaraderie. The brand ambassadors of the festival were established artiste, Ananda Everingham, and the youthful actor, Bhumibhat Thavornsiri .

All the Thai artistes this writer met seemed gung-ho about the unmitigated support for the festival by the ministry of culture. They hoped that the Thai government’s commitment to cinema would last long.