Cinemas in focus
Siam Society will host a talk on “The Life, Death and Rebirth of the Stand-Alone Movie Theater in Thailand and Asean” tomorrow at 7.30pm.
The speaker will be Philip Jablon, a Chiang Mai-based, American-born researcher and photographer, who will take participants to learn more about stand-alone cinemas, which were the pre-eminent venues for cultural dissemination in Thailand and greater Southeast Asia throughout most of the 20th century.
Since the start of the 21st century, however, stand-alone cinemas and the social life that they supported have been on the brink of extinction throughout the region. Widespread social and technological changes caused them to lose their distinct role as centres for shared pleasures and social interaction.
This presentation takes a pictorial and historical look at Southeast Asia’s remaining stand-alone cinemas and examines the historical role of the stand-alone cinema in Thailand, Myanmar and Laos and their rise and fall as an entertainment, leisure and informational space.
Case studies of the few stand-alone cinemas in the region that have been or are in the process of being preserved will also be discussed.