The annual Laotian Rocket Festival is colourful, explosive, and occasionally dangerous, and something that many say every intrepid traveller worth their salt has to experience at least once.

Also known as the Bun Bang Fai festival, it is a wild fertility celebration occurring every May in Laos and Thailand, where you can expect drinking, dancing, cross dressing and phallus shaped rocket launching of epic proportions. Actually especially the latter – in spades.

The festival's timing is around the beginning of the rainy season and its roots are in the myth of the Toad King and his epic battle with the Rain God. After war was waged the Toad King emerged as the victor and the rockets symbolise a truce between the two and are the signal for the Rain God to begin the seasonal rains. It is said that if you make the trip then be sure to keep your distance – the majority of the rockets are homemade and some are huge (up to 120 kg!), so you never know when one might blow up in your face.

The annual Laotian Rocket Festival is colourful, explosive, and occasionally dangerous, and something that many say every intrepid traveller worth their salt has to experience at least once.

Also known as the Bun Bang Fai festival, it is a wild fertility celebration occurring every May in Laos and Thailand, where you can expect drinking, dancing, cross dressing and phallus shaped rocket launching of epic proportions. Actually especially the latter – in spades.

The festival's timing is around the beginning of the rainy season and its roots are in the myth of the Toad King and his epic battle with the Rain God. After war was waged the Toad King emerged as the victor and the rockets symbolise a truce between the two and are the signal for the Rain God to begin the seasonal rains. It is said that if you make the trip then be sure to keep your distance – the majority of the rockets are homemade and some are huge (up to 120 kg!), so you never know when one might blow up in your face.

Which brings me to THE ROCKET – winner of the Amnesty International Film Prize and Best Debut Film at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, as well as movie that took home the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2013 Sydney Film Festival. Showing this week on Rialto, it is a powerful, deeply moving drama told in the most gentle of ways, making it even more impactful on the emotions. At its heart is a young boy who comes to terms with the tragedies that have befallen his family by creating a thing of beauty - a gorgeous, high-flying rocket emitting triumphant bursts of colour – for the aforementioned festival in Laos.

The film is the debut fiction feature from an Australian documentary-maker called Kim Mordaunt, and reportedly grew out of Mordaunt's 2007 documentary Bomb Harvest, about the work of an Australian bomb disposal expert trying to clear away the huge number of unexploded devices dropped on Laos by the US during the Vietnam War. Children are still at risk from these terrifying objects in the ground in countries all over the world, and the gentleness of THE ROCKET is an interesting contrast to the grim and even tragic subject matter.

Sitthiphon ‘Ki’ Disamoe plays the ten-year-old Laotian boy, Ahlo leading the film, and is an absolute joy to watch on screen. It seems I’m not the only one who thought so as well, as the former street kid won best actor at 2013’s Tribeca Film Festival for the role ahead of seasoned veterans such as Golden Globe-winner Gabriel Byrne and Oscar nominee Matt Dillon. Director Mordaunt has said that after auditioning more than 1000 children for the role of Ahlo, he knew he had uncovered an extraordinary natural talent in the form of Ki. The young, non-professional actor was undernourished to the point of malnutrition when he signed on for the job, and when you see both guts and determination in the kid’s eyes it is undoubtedly very, very real. Bizarrely, it was reported that the young star went missing not long after filming wrapped, showing up in an

Internet cafe in Bangkok nearly two weeks after he disappeared. A good Samaritan spotted the young actor in a weak condition at an Internet café-meets-video games shop in Ramkhamhaeng area and informed a television show that was assisting with the search for him, which is all quite odd and troubling.

But back to the movie THE ROCKET, and a celebration of Ki’s amazing performance in it that most definitely rivals the greats. This is most definitely a must watch, and is as uplifting and inspiring as it is saddening. Keep a box of tissues at hand and marvel at the pure, raw talent on the screen.

Screening Times: