Pattaya International Film Festival (PTYIFF) starts today - 23 Aug - 30 August 2026

[bkkmfj2648]

https://www.ptyiff.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Pattayainternationalfilmfestival

https://www.instagram.com/ptyiff/

 

The film (HEALS) that I am looking forward to see will be shown on Thursday 27 August 2026 at 8pm.  My understanding is that tickets cannot be pre-purchased - as seating to these screenings is free - so first come - first served.  However, within the PTYIFF facebook page there is a QR code that leads to a Google Form where you can supposedly book that you are interested in attending a specific film screening - which I did - but T.i.T. and there was no reply.  Here is the related QR code = 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Da4DK-VooKD/

 

HEALS is a 2026 documentary that was directed by Emmy-winning Thai-American filmmaker, Pailin Wedel.  It is the story of the Thai drag performer, Pangina Heals who became very successful in Las Vegas when she was discovered by RuPaul's Drag Race Live!  It also shares the story of Pangina's coming out and the associated difficulties that this raised in a conservative Thai-Chinese household.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWBsx1tCchU/

 

I am still timidly pursuing within the local drag/ladyboy community here in Pattaya to go and see the film together but I have encountered some lackluster enthusiasm - which confuses me as I had thought that the local ladyboy/drag community would want to celebrate this global moment of success.  Even after 4 years of living here - it is still difficult to understand what motivate and does not motivate the local community.

I will try again this Monday, 24 August 2026, when the Pok Model Pattaya 2026 modeling contest will take place in the Jomtien Complex, aka Supertown.  I believe that the event will start at 7pm but where the physical event will take place within the complex I have not yet discovered.  Last year's POK event took place on a big stage that was constructed in front of The Venue.

I used Google Lens translate to present the above image (original was in Thai)

 

 

[mauRICE]

The POK Model Pattaya 2026 will be staged this evening, 24th August, in front of M2M Bar in Supertown, Jomtien Complex.  It promises to be an entertaining, fun-filled night. Event proper starts around 7 PM. See you there!

[bkkmfj2648]

Last night I attended the 2026 POK Model Contest in Supertown and I returned to my condo very late - after the supposed official closing hours of the Jomtien Complex - as the contest got off to a late start - instead of starting at 7pm but instead after 8pm, the model competition commenced. Below I have inserted the Facebook live feed that was posted by Nut TY - note that it is almost 5 hours long. I am hoping that in the next days someone (like the famous Youtube blogger = Pure ThailandBKK) will produce a condensed highlights version.

It was packed in the area of the contest red carpet runway, which started from Rob's CockA2 bar through the end of the East Lounge bar. The rest of Supertown was very quiet, as all of the excitement and action was in this area.

Since I had never seen or participated in a POK Model Contest before I did not know what to expect. It is very important to understand what "POK" means in a Thai context = “POK” (or โปก / หัวโปก) refers to short-haired contestants, typically gay men or transgender women (kathoey/sao kham phet) with a boyish/masculine short haircut, often without wigs, and frequently pre-op (no breast surgery yet) or not fully feminized.

I found it very entertaining and interesting from a Thai cultural point of view, because:

- The most shocking thing to see is a very manly-ish contestant looking very drag/kathoey looking and then to see him later at the end of the show back into his street clothes as a truly stunning manly heterosexual looking man. Some of the contestants returned to either their gay partners, friends, or wives - I was like WOW - Thailand is truly much more diverse than I had perceived prior to last night.

- I was seated with a large group of my ex or not ex Thai BF's friends - our status is hard to understand - but I enjoy his company and friendship. His friends were rooting for a specific contestant and the most tense moment of the 5 hour show was the Popular Vote competition where us as spectators can buy individual garlands at 100 baht each for the contestant that we want to see win the Popular Vote. Well, many guys at our table and surrounding tables spent well over 35,000 baht on garlands to see their "star" win. Unfortunately, the judges chose someone else who I believe works at the M2M bar. By the way, the Supertown sponsors for this year's event were; M2M Cabaret Showbar, My Favortite Diner, and Buenos Mexican Cuisine - who I believe are all owned by the same farang conglomerate. Well, things got VERY tense with shouting at the judges when the said 35k garland receiver did not win. The situation had to be diffused with lots of back and forth between those protesting versus those making the Popular Vote decision. Me being a farang and not understanding Thai I could not truly understand the exact details - but after witnessing last month the Popular Vote for the Mr. Jomtien Complex Sexy Boy contest I know that things can become very competitive between the Thais.

- The variety of what was asked of the (I believe 38 contestants) was impressive - first rounds were of them in their competitive and artistic outfits, other rounds were where they were given a white sheet of fabric and to use it with a pair of scissors to accessorize their existing outfits and/or shed their existing outfits and to use this white fabric after it had been cut up by their "costume team" into something original and on the spot. This challenged them to transform themselves into something unique within a very limited amount of time. During this transition period - some of the sexy male muscular "helpers" entered onto the runway only in sexy white underwear and sneakers and some of them were sporting juicy big 🍆 erections 🍆 - all of course to help with this white sheet transition.....

- Some of the costumes were very original:
- one sent out a smoke screen whenever the contestant would twirl and/or raise her/his arms,
- one had a high beam headlight attached to her body,
- one had on each shoulder/upper arm - a bubble producing machine - that was hilarious as the bubbles were shooting onto her/his competition,
- one had a costume made out of newspapers in a fashion bow like manner,
- one had a toilet attached to her head (made out of styrofoam).

And then there were the sad events when a contestant would either stumble (her/his ankles gave out) and/or when their costume would become entangled into their walking step during their runway showoff walk - those moments were embarrassing and very sad for the impacted contestants - as the judges deducted points from their score as a consequence.

Back to the issue of Pangina "Pan Pan" Heals - many of the Thai people that I spoke with about this at the event:

• knew who Pan Pan is,
• were not aware that;
• 1.) The Pattaya International Film Festival is occurring this week,
• 2.) that Pan Pan's biography film, HEALS is being debuted at the Pattaya International Film Festival,
• did not feel the need to give Pan Pan much attention as she was not from Pattaya or she did not find her success in the Pattaya drag + kathoey entertainment industry venues; like Tiffany's, Colosseum, Alcazar, etc,
• Pan Pan's success is "foreign made" [ Las Vegas, USA, UK, Bangkok ] and not Pattaya grass-roots made.

And I have to agree with some farangs that I spoke with about this issue that there is an unspoken sense of jealousy - this made me sad because it would be so much better to put this jealousy aside - as Thailand is at that critical moment to win the rights to host the World Pride 2030 over Barcelona with the next political marketing events to be held in Phuket in October and I believe the official country winner to be announced in January 2027. I wish the Thai drag + kathoey community could rally around Pan Pan to show the decision makers that Thailand has something that Barcelona does not and to award the World Pride 2030 event to Thailand.

Nut TY facebook feed (4 hours and 44 minutes) from the 24 August 2026 POK Model contest held in the Jomtien Complex, Supertown:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/184wHneif8/

SWING just released their composite of the POK Model contest on their facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CNQ9m7FMg/

Rob - owner from the CockA2 bar posted this:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18G7thpsnv/

 

Next up - to go and see the HEALS documentary screening on Thursday 27 August 2026 over at the Central Marina cinema.

https://www.ptyiff.com/copy-of-our-team

 

[bkkmfj2648]

Remember that tomorrow, Thursday August 27, 2026 is the official showing of the Pangina "Pan Pan" Heals film = HEALS

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1047429791106826

The Pattaya International Film Festival (PTYIFF) is free on a first come first serve basis. However, they are promoting a QR pre-booking type of system - as you need to register when you arrive. There is confusion - because these QR codes are designated by the venue that is hosting the film that you want to see. Consequently, there are 3 distinct venue QR codes for:

• SFX Cinema Terminal 21, 
• SF Cinema Central Marina Outlet,
• Major Avenue Pattaya.

I believe that HEALS will be shown at the SF Cinema Central Marina Outlet at 8pm and the related QR code for this specific cinema can be found at ( use the QR code on the left that is displayed ) :

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=992919027135340&set=pcb.992919633801946

Buona visione!!

[bkkmfj2648]

22 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

The variety of what was asked of the (I believe 38 contestants) was impressive - first rounds were of them in their competitive and artistic outfits, other rounds were where they were given a white sheet of fabric and to use it with a pair of scissors to accessorize their existing outfits and/or shed their existing outfits and to use this white fabric after it had been cut up by their "costume team" into something original and on the spot. This challenged them to transform themselves into something unique within a very limited amount of time. During this transition period - some of the sexy male muscular "helpers" entered onto the runway only in sexy white underwear and sneakers and some of them were sporting juicy big 🍆 erections 🍆 - all of course to help with this white sheet transition.....

Some of you have asked me - why can't we see the sexy arousal scene (mentioned in the above post) while the POK contestants transformed into their on-the-spot white sheet costumes.  Note that he is only 1 of the perhaps 3 guys that I noticed doing this during the contest.  Well, here is one short snippet that was posted today:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1PWwQodsHi/

And here is his FB page - truly a sexy guy:

https://www.facebook.com/kong.kittiphong.31

 

 

[emiel1981]

8 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

And here is his FB page - truly a sexy guy:

https://www.facebook.com/kong.kittiphong.31

Very sexy indeed!

Have your detective skills helped you figure out yet if these guys work somewhere in Jomtien? In a bar? Massage? Off-able? lol

[bkkmfj2648]

18 hours ago, emiel1981 said:

Have your detective skills helped you figure out yet if these guys work somewhere in Jomtien? In a bar? Massage? Off-able? lol

This is a very difficult question for me to answer for the following reasons:

1. Prior to attending this week's 2026 POK Modeling event in Supertown - I would have never been exposed to:

• Seeing and witnessing the transformation of Supertown from a typical 85% farang / 15% not farang customer distribution (excluding the staff that work in Supertown) on a typical low season night to what I witnessed as a packed Supertown (in the area of the POK Modeling catwalk runway) to be 80% Thai and 20% farang/other.  That demographic change was shocking to me - because as a general rule here in Pattaya - Thais generally don't enter into Supertown (unless that is where they work) - because of its "reputation".  So, it was very impressive to see Supertown FULL of Thais that would not normally be there.
• As my ExThaiBF#2 has friends across so many parts of local Thai society (Supertown workers, Dongtan gay volleyball + more recently Chaiyaphruek volleyball, kathoey - ladyboy friends, Jomtien soi 12 beach night, friends who work in the Pattaya entertainment sector in places like Tiffany's, Alcazar, and Colosseum, etc.) I am constantly exposed (thanks to him) to parts of Thai society that I would not normally come into contact with by just hanging out with the other farangs in Supertown.

  2. I only desired to go to this specific POK Modeling event because I was having difficulties with many of the local Thais on why they had a lackluster response to Pangina "Pan Pan" Heals success with Ru Paul and her global success and related film = HEALS being debuted today at the Pattaya International Film Festival.  Many people that I spoke with told me to go to the POK Modeling event to meet people who could properly provide answers to my above mentioned dilemma.

3. What I learned is that the Thais that were in attendance at the POK Modeling event on 24 August 2026 worked in the entertainment sector (Tiffany's, Alcazar, Colosseum, etc.) and were models and people who want to gain their BIG-Break (a chance to enter into) into modeling stardom that could lead to successful future careers in showbusiness, cinema, modeling, Thai TV, entertainment stars, fashion designers, makeup artists, beauty, clothing design, etc.  Also, were in attendance many people who are friends and/or supporters of the above mentioned entertainment sectors.  In fact, the sexy Thai guy who was sitting next to me when I asked him what was his job, he replied, I am a "host boy" - so I replied so in which Supertown bar do you work?  He replied, oh no, I work in the Thai-on-Thai business sector and the host bar that I work in is near Tukom in Central Pattaya - perhaps the Diamond Club.  I asked my ExThaiBF#2 and he said that there are many of these such places for Thai people to go and have fun.  I learned that these places are often where the Thais who work in the above mentioned entertainment businesses go to relax and do what us farangs do in our Supertown/Boyztown host bars - "same same".

4. @emiel1981 I wanted to get specific names out of my ExThaiBF#2 to respond to your question - but after the 2026 Pok Model altercation about who is the true winner of the Popular Vote - ExThaiBF#2 and his friends do not want to speak with me any further about the Pok Model contest - as they are still very upset and they have all agreed to let the Pok Model event be history and that their potential future model contestants will no longer participate, as they believe that the judging mechanism that is currently in place is allegedly not fair.  I can't say much more because Supertown is kind of home for me and I know the people involved - so I prefer to let the Thai vs. Thai guys hammer out their differences between them without me getting on the wrong side of the argument.

5. How can you proceed to gain access to these guys?  Facebook.    Below are the Facebook links to many of the guys where you could try to friend them and strike up a conversation to see if they would be willing to meetup.  Scroll through their facebook feeds, click on the comments (many interesting people make comments), friends list, etc.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CqJMbT67q/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19MMd6XRHe/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/198pgb71Y5/

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/19Ng7dakfM/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GUWTmWN6Q/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19QTp7EGQ5/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1SnmdLGv1J/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/197tZtZ2xi/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/173MnYaFxV/

If you are good at understanding who is the hot/sexy guy out of his drag outfit - then the below 2026 POK Model winners photo may help you:

Emiel, perhaps by the time that you arrive in Pattaya in a couple of months - things will have calmed down and we can try together to coax the information that you seek directly from my ExThaiBF#2 - or from his many gazillions of friends....