For decades, the global film industry has been dominated by men. Since the Academy Awards were handed out in 1929, only three female directors have been awarded the coveted Best Director Oscar (Kathryn Bigelow in 2009, Chloé Zhao in 2021, and Jane Campion in 2022). Filmmaking, like other artistic endeavours, is not easy to make a living from, let alone become recognized in. The women acknowledged here are leading the way in the art of Lao cinematography, whether they be directors, producers, screenwriters, actresses, editors, or make-up artists. Between the Lao diaspora dispersed across continents from a war torn country and the sisters they left behind whose families also struggled to rebuild, Lao women have many diverse stories to tell and in their own creative ways. Blue Chair Film Festival director, Sean Chadwell sees that “…because Lao film is coming of age in an era where the rest of the world is finally acknowledging systemic sexism (not to mention other isms) in professional filmmaking, the Lao film community has an excellent opportunity to avoid that altogether – and build an inclusive industry from the start.”

Boulomsouk Svadphaiphane
Boulomsouk Svadphaiphane was born in Vientiane in 1974 and arrived in France when she was just two years old. She is an author, director, photographer, and painter.  Since her debut into the art world, Svadphaiphane has been a prolific presence and recognized as a jack-of-all trades artist who draws strength and inspiration from her personal story.

In 2004, Svadphaiphane started up her own audiovisual company, Boulimik Productions, which produced and directed video clips, short films, and documentaries. With the production company, she was a producer, screenwriter, and director for several years. Feature films that followed include: “CHAIR” (2017), “Stockholm” (2016), “Ma Famille t’adore déjà” (2016), “Chinese, premiere langue” (2013), and “Hadès” (2021).

Chansamai Phanouvong
Chansamai Phanouvong was born in Xiengkhouang Province in Northeastern Laos. She currently resides in Vientiane and is an active photographer, videographer, documentary filmmaker, producer, and youth trainer. She is self-taught in the arts and has refined her knowledge through various workshops, seminars, and through jobs with organisations that value and utilise her abilities as a filmmaker.

Phanouvong began her film career in 2013 when she became technical staff at the Dok Lao Centre under the Participatory Development Training Center (PADETC) in Vientiane. Dok Lao promotes media production for education and sustainable development. Under their tutelage for more than four years, Phanouvong was trained in filmmaking and production, while assisting with administrative work such as organising workshops, film festivals, and training other young artists.

Phanouvong makes films with a purpose, bringing to light social and political issues. These are important to the development of her work. Examples include documentation of the Lao Women’s National Rugby Team on their journey to the Incheon Asian Games in 2014. A short film in 2019 (I Felt Happy) of a Lao mother discussing her son’s autism and her fight for acceptance of the disorder in Laos, bringing awareness to the stigma of autistic individuals as being “stupid” or “possessed”. Other notable documentary shorts by Phanouvong include The Mind (2022) which highlights traditional Katu weavers and their use of natural raw materials and their harmonious and environmentally sustainable way of living. And BoTen BoPiad produced for the anthology Stories from the Train (2020), is a tale of the salt factory in Boten that was founded in 1975 and is forced to relocate several times, to make room for the new Laos-China Railway.

Dorn (Namthipkesone) Bouttasing
Dorn Bouttasing was born in Xieng Khouang Province in 1983. She is the founder and director of Green Laos Community Volunteers, is a part time consultant for Running Reel, a media production services company, and works as a freelance consultant on community development and environmental projects. She is a storyteller, photographer, and documentary filmmaker.

Bouttasing completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in 2006 in Vientiane. In 2016, she enrolled in an intensive English program at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA. As part of her humanitarian career, she has participated in several human rights and environmental workshops and conferences over the years.

With partial funding from BOTH ENDS (an organisation “connecting people for change”), Bouttasing created an organic documentary called The River Change From Community’s View (2016). The film expresses concern for the lives impacted by the changes to the Nam Ou River after the construction of a dam. This film was followed by LET’s Love (2018), a short drama that “…illuminates the many obstacles currently facing the LGBTQI community in Laos…”

Bouttasing’s films are on the fringe of controversy and display her passion for social issues which propels her to share her knowledge and experiences through storytelling and filmwork. With her work and her films, Bouttasing is opening doors and inspiring those in marginalised groups to create their own initiatives and  improve livelihoods.

Mattie Thi Do
Born in Los Angeles, USA in 1981 to immigrant parents, Do moved with her father back to Laos in 2010 when he retired. She currently resides in Vientiane and is a self-taught, multi-award winning feature film director and producer.

In Vientiane, Do became a consultant to Lao Art Media. She worked with the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism to create an infrastructure for film production and make a framework to manage the inflexible and tricky censorship imposed by the country. A reluctant filmmaker, Do stumbled into the role when the ministry beseeched her to help attract attention to the Lao film industry. Two years later, Do made her directorial debut with the horror film Chanthaly (2013). It was filmed, written, and directed all in Laos. It is the first Lao film to be screened at major film festivals such as the 2013 Fantastic Fest in Austin Texas, USA.  As a result of the success of Chanthaly at film festivals, Do was selected for participation with the Cannes’ La Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde, Toronto International Film Festival’s Directors Talent Lab, Berlinale Talents, and Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival’s Fantastic Film School.

Riding the adrenaline of success, Do followed up Chanthaly with Dearest Sister (2016), which also premiered at Fantastic Fest and subsequently screened at the London Film Festival and the Sitges Festival in Spain, where it received a Special July mention. Remarkably, it was selected as Laos’ first official submission ever to be considered for an Oscar in the category of the Best Foreign Language film at the 90th Academy Awards. In November of the same year, Do was mentioned in Fortune’s 2016 column, “The World’s Most Powerful Women”.

Do’s third feature film and most acclaimed work to date,  The Long Walk (2019), is a supernatural, sci-fi, time travelling, thriller. It premiered at the Giornate degli Autori in Venice and was awarded Best Director at Sitges – Catalonian International Film Festival. Do also garnered the Best International Director award at Lusca Fantastic Film Fest in Puerto Rico.

Do has settled into the horror genre, finding it a successful approach to engage the Lao audience, explaining that “Everybody knows how to be afraid.” Through her films, she cunningly weaves sharp social commentary on gender politics, superstition, class divide, and family dynamics. Primarily casting women in the trilogy of her first films, Do focuses on the roles of women in their home lives, in their surrounding community, and in foreign society.

Making feature films in a developing country with minimal infrastructure, strict censorship, no resources, and a very limited budget could easily turn any filmmaker away. But Do persisted and allowed the challenges to fuel her creativity and innovation. Despite the constraints, she took advantage of the artistic freedom from preconceived notions that a country in its filmmaking infancy allowed. Do has been quoted saying, “The benefits of working in a new environment like Laos without a pre-existing structure is that everything I make is new. Because there aren’t any locked expectations about what a Lao film should be, I have the freedom to create something completely unique that hasn’t existed before.”

Mitpasa Sitthihuckpanya
Born in Vientiane in 1995, Mitpasa Sitthihuckpanya is a freelance filmmaker, content creator, journalist, and radio DJ in Vientiane. She studied Mass Media at the National University of Laos and is currently employed at China Media Group. Very passionate about making short films since 2013, she has been recognized for her work which brings attention to socio-political issues in Lao culture. In 2015, Sittihuckpanya published The Conscious on YouTube, a short movie about everyday decisions and the fine line between right and wrong.

In 2017 Sitthihuckpanya was selected to participate in a film leaders incubator program (ASEAN-ROK Film Leaders Incubator: FLY) for aspiring filmmakers from ASEAN countries and South Korea. Since then, she has directed Story of Dar (2018), which was supported by the Luang Prabang Film Festival and VOICE for the LPFF’s short film program Many Voices, One Laos, as it gave representation to the LGBTI+ context in Laos. Sitthihuckpanya’s latest work, The Blanket (2022) won the runner-up prize of RWI ASIA PACIFIC AWARD 2022 at the Bali International Short Film Festival (Minikino) and was an award nominee of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute Asia Pacific at MRW. The Blanket is a short film conveying the upheaval caused by the migration of household members as a necessary measure to improve the family’s economic situation.

Thi-Von Muong-Hane
Thi-Von Muong-Hane was born in 1978 in Avignon, France. She is a screenwriter, director, producer, director of art cinema, writer, and art critic. Her formative years in France brought out her love of art and was thus pursued with honours in 1996 (Literature High School Diploma with Fine Arts Option) and at Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne in 2005 (Master Degree in Contemporary Art History). Continuing to enhance her artistic development, she completed courses in screenwriting, principally in 2014 and 2021 and continues to avail herself of workshops and seminars.

In 2009, Muong-Hane co-founded Morning Song Production, the first animation studio in Laos. As an active member of the Lao film community, she has curated the Short Film Program for the first and second editions of the Luang Prabang International Film Festival in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, she was a member of the jury of the 3rd edition of the Vientiane Film Festival. She is often invited to speak at film and art related events in Laos.

When asked what the important issues for her work and artistic development are, she replied, “To make a difference in the world through art and writings, to make life better.” Though she resides just outside of Paris, Muong-Hane can sometimes be found in Vientiane.

Vannaphone Sitthirath
A native of Vientiane, Vannaphone Sitthirath, was born in 1978. She works in Vientiane as a filmmaker, media consultant, freelance journalist, and is co-founder of Lao New Wave Cinema Productions. Her formal education was completed in Australia. In 1999, she studied at the Queensland School of Film and TV Production in Brisbane, Australia.  In 2008, she was awarded a scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication at Griffith University in Brisbane.

Sitthirath’s commitment to supporting filmmaking in Laos manifested with the founding of Lao New Wave Cinema Productions in 2011. Sitthirath had her directorial debut in 2015 with an anthology film called Vientiane in Love (2015, co-directed with Anysay Keola, Phanumad Disattha, and Xaisongkham Induangchanthy). Other projects quickly followed including the short documentary, Those Below (producer 2015), Expiration Date (producer 2019), and currently in-development, Raising a Beast.

As part of an educational outreach program established by the Luang Prabang Film Festival in 2021, Sitthirath, along with Anysay Keola, were instructors for a workshop webinar that has been made public on Vimeo. In 2022 Sitthirath was one of the recipients of the Alumni Innovation Grants from the Laos Australia Institute for her project, ‘Sign for the Future’ which will produce interactive Lao sign language videos available online for deaf children in Laos. Over the years, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to the art of filmmaking in Laos and focuses on developing socially responsible media coverage in Laos. Sitthirath comments that her art form has changed “through times, friends, society, studies, and issues that bother” her.

Wravong Prachanh (Noknoy)
The oldest of three girls, Wravong Prachanh was born in 1998 in Vientiane to a mother who is a teacher and a father who is an architect. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Animation at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Vientiane. She is first and foremost, an illustrator and animator. As a filmmaker, she is known for directing the short fiction love story, A Friend Request (2019) which was screened at Vientiane’s LanXang Shorts Film Festival and S-Express Laos 2022 in Vietnam.