The Future of Lao Cinema: The New Wave

The debut work of Mattie Do and Anysay Keola attests to the manner in which Lao cinema is being shaped by a new wave of young filmmakers determined to build a viable movie industry in the Lao PDR. With Chantaly, the first Lao horror movie, Mattie Do conjures up a world that cannot be fully explained rationally. She relies on the phi figure, and the belief of Lao people in supernatural beings, to raise serious questions about the traditional position occupied by women in the Lao family. Another film, Anysay Keola’s At the Horizon, the first Lao thriller, provides an edgy vision of contemporary Laos. The divide between the poor and the rich, tradition and modernity, is conveyed most originally via the soundtrack. Mattie Do and Anysay Keola are part of a new wave of promising young Lao directors who are fashioning a modern film industry in Laos.