Skyline and chill? Bangkok’s coolest cinema is literally on ice

If Bangkok in August is a film, for now, it’s not the breezy rom-com of your dreams – it’s a sweaty, water-logged drama, heavy on atmosphere and low on personal space. The rain doesn’t so much fall as loom (but it will, heavy), ready to arrive when you’ve just dried your shoes. Heat clings like a subplot that refuses to resolve. In such a climate, air-conditioning isn’t a luxury – it’s a plot device.

Which is perhaps why Skyline Film Bangkok has decided to stage the cinematic escapism of watching films on an actual ice rink. Not just cold air, but frozen water beneath your feet. This isn’t your usual ‘movies under the stars’ scenario – it’s movies under the rink lights, surrounded by frost and the faint scrape of skates. You get the sort of chill that even a theatre’s air-con can’t match, plus the unexpected pleasure of pairing popcorn with the faint scent of Zamboni polish.

Sub-Zero Ice Skate Club x Skyline Film, a two-day event presents six films for all temperaments – from existential daydreamers to pink-plastic idealists – served with complimentary drinks and the option to glide, twirl or cling nervously to the barrier during free skating sessions. Because if you’ve come all the way to an ice rink to sit still, you may as well earn it.

The setting is Sub-Zero Ice Skate Club Sukhumvit, where August 23-24 will see a parade of genres unfold against a backdrop of cold mist and rinkside chatter. Tickets are B550 – a sum that buys not just a seat, but a mood, an atmosphere, a narrative break from the weather outside.

Film schedule:

Saturday August 23 

• Doors open at 1pm (Free Ice Skating 1pm-2pm)
  Me Before You, 2.15pm
  Lou Clark, 26, is still working out the plot of her own life when she accepts a job caring for Will Traynor, a wealthy man paralysed in an accident. She’s untrained, unprepared and – without warning – pulled into an emotional story she didn’t audition for.
  

•  Doors open at 4.30pm (Free Ice Skating 4pm-5.30pm)
  Barbie, 5.45pm
  When Barbie discovers a crack in her flawless facade, she swaps pastel-perfect Barbie Land for the unpredictable mess of reality, with Ken loyally (and cluelessly) in tow.
  
  

•  Doors 7.45pm (Free Ice Skating 7.45pm-8.45pm)
  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 9pm
  A photo archivist at Life magazine daydreams his way out of routine, imagining himself as a globe-trotting hero on impossible adventures – until real life calls him to act.

Sunday August 24

• Doors open at 1pm (Free Ice Skating 1pm-2pm)
  Beauty and the Beast, 2.15pm
  Belle’s imprisonment in a castle ruled by a Beast raises an old question: can love outgrow appearance?
  
  

•  Doors open at 4.30pm (Free Ice Skating 4.30pm-7.30pm)
  The Theory of Everything, 5.45pm
  The romance of Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde begins in light and brilliance – until his diagnosis reshapes their future, without dimming their bond.
  
  

•  Doors open at 7.45pm (Free Ice Skating 7.45pm-8.45pm)
  One Day, 9pm
  Dexter and Emma meet on graduation day, then reunite on the same date every year – a friendship, a maybe-romance, a relationship defined as much by timing as by feeling.

Tickets priced at B550 via Ticketmelon right here.