One of the fastest growing and most internationally renowned cinemas in Southeast Asia is that of Thailand. In the first ever book devoted solely to this major centre of creative filmmaking, experts on contemporary and historic Thai film provide a timely overview and discussion of key films, directors and current movements in the region in a comprehensive encyclopaedia format. What many critics, analysts and scholars have retrospectively christened `New Thai Cinema' began to take shape in the late 1990s when national film moved away from its position as lower-class and provincial entertainment and became a firm fixture in Bangkok multiplexes and festivals worldwide. This book will provide information on the influential figures behind the films - up to and succeeding the 1997 watershed film Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters that began the breakaway movement - as well as detailing and explaining the traditions of popular and art-house genres specific to Thailand. Featuring contributions on Thai visionaries such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Wisit Sasanatieng and providing rare insight into early Thai cinema, this is an essential scholarly guide to a vibrant aspect of Southeast Asian cinema - its history, industry and aesthetic trends - for scholars and students alike.

Author Biography

Mary J. Ainslie is Assistant Professor of Film and Media at the University of Nottingham; she is based at the university's Ningbo campus in China. Her research interests include Southeast Asian culture and media, in particular relating to Thailand and Malaysia. She is the editor of a special edition of the Horror Studies journal, as well as the collectionThe Korean Wave in Southeast Asia: Consumption and Cultural Production (2015). She is currently working on a project on the Southeast Asian gothic. Katarzyna Ancuta is a lecturer at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL) in Thailand. Her research focuses on the multidisciplinary, contemporary gothic and horror genre, currently with a strong Asian focus. Her recent publications include chapters in A New Companion to the Gothic (2012), Globalgothic (2013), The Cambridge Companion to the Modern Gothic (2014) and Ghost Movies in Southeast Asia and Beyond (2016), as well as two co-edited special journal issues on Thai (2014) and Southeast Asian (2015) horror film.