As darkness fell over Bangkok, Scandinavians and Thai guests filled the Danish Embassy’s garden for an open-air night of Nordic cinema at the 2026 Nordic Film Festival.
Friday the 13th is usually associated with bad luck and horror stories.
But at the Danish Embassy in Bangkok, the evening unfolded in a very different way — with Pad Thai, popcorn and Nordic cinema under the open sky.
Big, bright screen and buzzing guests
The Nordic Film Festival set up its outdoor screening in the embassy garden, where a large screen stood against the darkening sky. In the distance, Bangkok’s high-rise skyline framed the horizon, the city’s skyscrapers glowing behind the trees as the sun went down.
However, the bright screen and the embassy’s tropical garden proved irresistible not only to film lovers. As darkness fell, the light from the screen and the dense greenery attracted plenty of mosquitoes.
Fortunately, the organisers had anticipated the challenge: a full table of insect spray stood ready for guests, and it quickly became one of the most visited stations of the evening.
Pad Thai, popcorn and picture-perfect vibes
Before the screen lit up, Tobias Lentz from the embassy’s public diplomacy team stepped forward to welcome the crowd and formally open the evening.
As guests settled into their seats, plates of Pad Thai and cups of ice cream made their way around the garden. Rows of chairs and colourful beanbags quickly filled up, and there was hardly an empty seat in sight.
At the back of the garden, the Danish ambassador, Danny Annan, watched the film alongside the audience, seated quietly among the guests.
Popcorn rustled in paper bags, soft drinks fizzed in blue plastic cups, and bags of Danish gummy sweets and Marabou chocolate circulated among the guests. For some guests, the festival setting felt less like a public event and more like a cosy date night beneath the Bangkok sky.
The nordic weekend opened in Danish
The Danish film The Land of Short Sentences opened the festival. Although it was scheduled for 18:15, the screening started a little later, once everyone had settled in with snacks and found their seats.
The film was shown in Danish with English subtitles, and the audience reflected the Nordic spirit of the event. Scandinavians living in Thailand sat side by side with Thai guests, filling the rows with a mix of younger viewers and older members of the community.
The Nordic Film Festival featured films from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and has become a recurring cultural highlight at the embassy. After the Danish screening, the programme continued with a Norwegian film, and on Saturday the festival repeated the format with Finnish and Swedish films.
