Luang Prabang Film Festival coming December 2018

The dates were recently announced for the 2018 Luang Prabang Film Festival as December 7-12th. The festival’s special focus will be on Indonesia this year.

Short films, feature-length films, public discussions and other events will be part of the programming. 22,000 people were believed to have attended the 2017 Luang Prabang Film Festival and it shows strong signs of continued growth. Manilla Chounlamountri, art director of the Vientiane-based Me-Idea Full Service Agency, came up with this year’s poster.

All festival events are free and open to the public.

For more detailsL www.LPFilmFest.org.

Kulap Vilaysack interviewed in Hyphen Magazine

Hyphen Magazine interviewed Lao American creator Kulap Vilaysack about her directorial debut
Origin Story. The documentary follows her journey back to Laos to learn the truth about her biological father and marks a significant moment in the children of the Lao diaspora coming to terms with the complexity of their journeys and how families rebuild. Origin Story recently won an award at CAAMfest in its category during its West Coast premiere.

 Kulap Vilaysack was born in Washington DC and grew up in Minnesota. Today, she is an LA-based actor, writer and comedian. She co-hosted a weekly popular podcast, “Who Charted?” with Howard Kremer for over 7 years and often appears on other podcasts.. Her acting credits include The Office, Parks and Recreation, Happy Endings, Bob’s Burgers, The Sarah Silverman Program and Reno 911! She has had recurring roles in Childrens Hospital and Comedy Bang! Bang! She can also count appearances in the films I Love You Man and Welcome to Me. She created, showran, and directed the show Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ that ran for four seasons.

Chantala Kommanivanh exhibition Su Kwan (Calling of the Souls) coming

Recently Lao American artist Chantala Kommanivanh announced an upcoming exhibit at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee at the end of August, with a closing reception on September 14th.

Chantala Kommanivanh is a high energy and engaged emerging Laotian American artist. He is both a visual artist and has an active role as one half of the dynamic hip-hop duo “Maintenance Crew” with whom he has released 4 full-length albums. The rap music and the visual work have areas of overlap in terms of their meaning and content.

His work has been displayed in four solo exhibitions in the Chicago area galleries and has been included in numerous group and invitational exhibitions in the U.S. He received his Master of Fine Art at UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts in 2014 emphasizing in painting and drawing.

Throughout his career Chantala achieved numerous awards such as the Union League Civic Arts foundation award and a two-time A.O.P Fellowship award recipient. Chantala Kommanivanh currently lives and works in Chicago as a practicing visual artist and a professor of the arts at Northeastern Illinois University.