All activities / Film Festivals / Luang Prabang
Film Festivals in Luang Prabang
Blue Chair Film Festival
A UNESCO World Heritage town at the meeting of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, the former royal capital of Laos, known for its gilded temples, French-colonial streets, dawn alms rounds and night market, and the springboard for the country's north.
Run by Blue Chair, with published dates and a real program.
Dates & details verified against: Official event site ↗
Why here
The Blue Chair Film Festival, known for its first sixteen years as the Luang Prabang Film Festival, is Laos's window onto Southeast Asian cinema. Founded in 2010, it fills the UNESCO town each December with free open-air screenings shown after dark on a big screen, with the audience seated in the hundreds of blue plastic chairs that gave the festival its new name. The programme is drawn entirely from the ASEAN region, so a few evenings here is a crash course in the films of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Laos itself, a national cinema most visitors never encounter. Alongside the screenings the festival runs a Talent Lab for emerging regional directors and small filmmaker grants, which makes it a genuine industry gathering rather than just a projection under the stars.
Best months
The festival runs for several days in early December, and every screening and public talk is free and open to the public. December is peak dry season in Luang Prabang, cool and clear, ideal for open-air cinema. Note that the festival now runs on a roughly biennial cycle under its Blue Chair name; confirm the current edition's dates and venues on the official site before planning around it.
Getting there & around
Luang Prabang has an international airport and a station on the fast China-Laos railway, and screenings take place at a handful of venues around the walkable old town. Screenings are free with no ticketing, so the main thing to book is a bed, since early December is high season and the festival draws visitors. Check the official site for the venue list and schedule each edition.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (1)
Blue Chair Film Festival
OrganizerBlue Chair, founded in 2010 as the Luang Prabang Film Festival by the American cultural organiser Gabriel Kuperman, is a non-profit that stages a free film festival in Luang Prabang each December. It screens only contemporary Southeast Asian cinema from the ASEAN region, shown after dark on a large open-air screen backed by the hundreds of blue plastic chairs that gave it its later name. It also runs a Talent Lab for emerging regional filmmakers, developed with the Tribeca Film Institute.