AS the 2005 recipients of ShoWest's

AS the 2005 recipients of ShoWest's Marketing Achievement Award for Theatrical Exhibition, brothers Suwat and Suvit Thongrompo have in a mere six years turned a fledgling movie theater business in Bangkok, Thailand, into the country's second-largest chain. Their SF Cinema City began as a single multiplex--the MBK entertainment center--and now boasts eight locations and 68 screens.

That's not to mention an additional 40 screens controlled by the Thongrompos and operated by their brother, Pongsak, under the Samarn Film Co. banner. The name honors their father, Samarn, who operated a stand-alone theater in the eastern seaboard town of Trad while the boys were growing up. When the elder Thongrompo passed away in 1982, Suwat then took over the family business, running the movie house as a teenager with his mother. …