BOR MI VANH CHARK

by Mattie Do

Laos, Spain, Singapore, 2019, 116', color, DCP

Screenplay: Christopher Larsen

Friday 30 August 2019

22:00 Sala Perla 2 Press, Industry

Wednesday 04 September 2019

11:15 Sala Perla Tickets, All Accreditations
Followed by Q&A

Friday 06 September 2019

22:30 Sala Perla 2 All Accreditations

THE LONG WALK

cinematography
Matthew Whitcomb Macar
editing
Zohar Michel
music
Anthony Weeden
sound
Alex Boyesen
production design
Thana Maykaoumput
Chatchai Chaiyon

cast
Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy
[The Old Man]
Por Silatsa
[The Boy]
Noutnapha Soydara
[The Girl]
Vilouna Phetmany
[Lina]
Chansamone Inoudom
[The Mother]

producers
Mattie Do
Douangmany Soliphanh
Christopher Larsen
Annick Mahnert
Justin Deimen
production
Lao Art Media

co-productions
Aurora Media
Screen Division
with the support of
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
Visions Sud Est

world sales
108 Media

International
press office
Matty O'Riordan

An old man walks the dusty roads between his isolated farm and the nearby rural village in the company of a silent spirit whose death he witnessed fifty years earlier. For decades, the old man's regret over losing his mother to tuberculosis has bred a pathological need to ease the suffering of the terminally ill, and over the years, he has quietly euthanized several sick women. As he realizes that his spectral companion is able to transport him back in time, the old man trespasses into his own past to set in motion a plan to convince his younger self to preempt his mother's terminal suffering.

THE LONG WALK

Filmography

2019 Bor Mi Vanh Chark (The Long Walk)

2016 Nong Hak (Dearest Sister)

2013 Chanthaly

Born to Lao refugees, Mattie Do was raised in Los Angeles, but returned to Laos a decade ago after her father retired in Vientiane. An alumni of the Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde, TIFF's Directors Lab, Berlinale Talents, and BIFAN's Fantastic Film School, she made her feature directorial debut in 2013, with Chanthaly, the first Lao film to screen outside of Southeast Asia. Three years later, her second film, Dearest Sister, received Special Jury Mentions at Sitges and Fantasporto, and was later selected as Laos' first submission for the Foreign Language Film Award at the 90th Academy Awards.

"I began with an image of an old man pushing a motorbike up a dirt road toward a futuristic skyline. An isolated man negotiating an existence between the cracks of development. Films set in the rural spaces of the developing world often glamorize poverty. They tend to portray village life as meditative and spiritual simply because it is not urban. These poverty porn depictions are often reductive and inauthentic. My story is linked to development, but it's not about corruption or neglect. It is not a comforting view of the developing world, but exposes its failings on a personal level." [Mattie Do]