Lao Filmmaker Receives Award At International Film Festival Oldenburg
Source: Vientiane Times
Lao filmmaker, Producer/Director at Lao Art Media Company Mattie Do recently received the 2021 German independence Honourary Tribute Award.
She told Vientiane Times that she was appreciative that her film “The Long Walk” received an award for independent spirit in filmmaking.
She said she was simultaneously in shock and honored to receive an award for independent spirit in filmmaking from the equally rebellious Internationales Filmfest Oldenburg.
“What started as a chance opportunity when meeting Producers Anousone Sirisackda and Douangmany at Lao Art Media, has now become a passion and career for me. I was so lucky that through Lao Art Media, I was given the chance to make films in my own way, and that they trusted my auteur vision.”
“This is absolutely unbelievable to me still, and a part of me is still in disbelief that I ended up in film with my (American) husband Chris Larsen.’’ She explained.
The 2021 Oldenburg Film Festival runs Sept. 15-19. The Oldenburg International Film Festival, Rated among the top 5 Film Festivals worldwide for Independent Films by American film critic Chris Gore in his esteemed ‘Ultimate Film Festival Guide’, and ranked “Top 25 Coolest Festivals in the World” by MovieMaker, Oldenburg has fostered its success with a strong commitment to innovative and independent filmmaking.
Labelled ‘the European Sundance’ by Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Screen International, amongst others, Oldenburg has evolved while preserving its intimate atmosphere and founding purpose: to celebrate and support the diverse voices and visions of independent filmmakers, to honor the creativity of the artists upon which the Festival depends, and to create a unique experience and inspiring meeting place for filmmakers, audiences, and media professionals.
As a truly independent filmmaker who combines genre cinema with an auteur touch, Mattie Do seems ideally suited to Oldenburg, country’s film industry and new voice of Asian genre film.
Mattie Do, her horrour film Chanthaly directed in 2013 which was the first Lao film to screen outside Southeast Asia, showing at the Austin Fantastic Fest.
Do’s 2016 follow-up, her second film Dearest Sister, screened at Fantastic Fest, the London Film Festival and at the Stiges festival in Spain, where it received a Special Jury mention.
After the success of Dearest Sister, Mattie Do continued to create her third feature drama film ‘’The Long Walk’’ the film premiered at Venice Days in 2019 and had its German premiere in Oldenburg to promote Lao film to international film festivals.
Do has been active in building up Laos’ movie infrastructure, working with the country’s Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism to create co-production treaties and find ways around Laos’ strict censorship laws. She has produced Laos’ first-ever American and Japanese co-productions with Katsuya Tomita’s Bangkok Nites.
