Doc on Thai-Danish Love Part of Diaspora Film Fest

BANGKOK — A documentary that looks at hundreds of Thai women marrying Danish men will debut in Bangkok next month as part of a film festival.

The Global Migration Film Festival this year will show seven films with highlights including “Heartbound,” which follows Thai women who moved to Denmark to escape poverty and prostitution and married local men.

The story starts in the early ‘90s when sex worker Sommai meets Neils in Pattaya. They fall in love, get married, and Sommai leaves to Denmark. There she becomes a matchmaker for Thai women and Danish men.

The film – shot over a decade in both countries – is directed and written by Janus Metz and anthropologist Sine Plambech.

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“Heartbound” will screen at 2pm on Dec. 16 at the Bangkok Screening Room. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with co-director Plambech.

The event’s other six offerings include “A Thousand Girls Like Me,” a docufilm on Khatera, an Afghan woman sexually abused by her father who goes public with her story on national TV in search of justice. Canadian drama “Monsieur Lazhar” follows an Algerian immigrant hired to replace an elementary school teacher who committed suicide.

A deeply moving story comes from “Sidney and Friends,” a documentary about Sidney – an intersex Kenyan from Nairobi – who flees to meet a group of transgender friends after his family tries to kill him.

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The festival runs Dec. 14 through Dec. 16 at the Bangkok Screening Room on Soi Sala Daeng 1, which is not far from BTS Sala Daeng or MRT Silom. The alternative cinema seats 52 people.

Admission is free. Tickets for each film are available on the day of screening at the venue on a first-come, first-served basis.