Life of Lord Buddha made into animated movie for kids

By ANJIRA ASSAVANONDA, Bangkok Post, Thursday, May 10, 2007

Thailand's first animated film on the Lord Buddha, Life of Buddha, will come out at the end of the year. The 100-minute movie, which is made in celebration of His Majesty the King's 80th birthday this year, will open in cinemas on Dec 5.

It has received full support from eight state agencies, including the ministries of Social Development and Human Security, Education, and Culture. The agencies signed an agreement yesterday to help promote the production.

Producer Valapha Pimthong, of Media Standard Ltd, said the film depicts the Lord Buddha's life story in full including his birth, his marriage, his spiritual quest and the path to his enlightenment, and his teaching of others.

The film's content has been screened by Maha Chulalongkorn Rajavidhayalai University to make sure there is nothing that contradicts the Tripitaka (canonical texts of Buddhism).

The film will be dubbed into English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and German.

Ms Valapha, who has studied in India, said her inspiration for the film came when she visited the Buddha's place of enlightenment.

She chose to make it an animated movie to make it easy for viewers, especially young people, to understand the Buddha's teachings.

It has taken her four years to produce the film, which is now 80% complete. The total production cost is estimated at 108 million baht.

The firm is seeking additional funds for post-production work including work on the soundtrack and sub-titles.

''Producing a movie about the Lord Buddha is really a tough job. Funding is one of the problems as it proved impossible to get a bank loan for the project.

''In addition, the content had to be changed so many times that I almost gave up. But as we're close to finished now, I feel proud of what we have done,'' said Ms Valapha.

Phra Marut Voramangkalo, of Maha Chulalongkorn Rajavidhayalai University, praised the company for its devotion.

''The story of the Lord Buddha has rarely been made into a cartoon or a film because it's hard to create something from tales or imagination. Nobody knows what the Buddha looked like.

''The film producer must have a lot of courage to invest in this production,'' he said.

Soraj Asavaprapha, of Mono Group, the film distributor, said he will push for the movie to be shown in all theatre groups nationwide, with children as the main target group.

source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/10May2007_news11.php