Review: Vanishing Point

• Directed by Jakrawal Nilthamrong
• Starring Ongart Cheamcharoenpornkul, Drunphob Suriyawong, Chalee Choueyai, Suweeraya Thongmee
• Reviewed at premiere screening on October 16, 2015 at the Laem Thong Theatre, Bangkok; rated 15+
• Wise Kwai's rating: 4/5

What is the point of Vanishing Point (วานิชชิ่ง พอยท์)? That’s a question that has vexed me since I saw the film in a rundown porn cinema in Bangkok.

Directed by Jakrawal nilthamrong, Vanishing Point is the culmination of everything the artist-filmmaker has done up to now. It won the Hivos Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and has been selected for many other fests. Like another prominent Thai artist-filmmaker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jakrawal is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and he’s much-respected in the art and indie filmmaking community. In his art installations and short films, Jakrawal explores strict Buddhist themes, reflecting on the dangers of greed and materialism.

An unapologetic art-house film, Vanishing Point is a cavalcade of experimental techniques and abstractions. The story, as nearly as I can make out, has two central characters, a journalist and a family man, whose lives run in parallel trajectories until they converge at that “vanishing point” on the horizon.

The film is also autobiographical in nature, since it opens with an image of a car twisted horrifically in half. The picture is from a 1983 newspaper report on a car being struck by a train, which left Jakrawal’s own parents with severe physical and emotional scars.

The wrecked car is something this Vanishing Point shares with the 1971 Hollywood counterculture film of the same title. Both movies are about existential crises, with the earlier film’s Kowalski at first having a purpose for driving his Dodge Challenger at flat-out speeds across the desert, but as that story goes on, he just drives for the sake of driving.

In Jakrawal’s Vanishing Point, the two central characters’ reasons for living are murkier. They are headed for the same destination as Kowalski – just far more slowly.

There’s also a sleazy 1970s vibe about the new Vanishing Point, an aesthetic that Jakrawal highlighted in choosing a cinema from that era as the venue for its debut in Bangkok. This business of life can be a dirty thing, and amid the mould and grime of Klong Toey’s Laem Thong Theatre, he wanted his audience to revel in it.

In the Thai universe of Vanishing Point, the fractured timeline shifts to the forest, where a reporter (played by Drunphob Suriyawong) is covering a police crime re-enactment. They have a suspected rapist acting out his deeds with a giant teddy bear. It’s a scene that will probably seem routine to Thais who see such things in the newspapers every day, but to foreigners it’s a bizarre situation. I too wonder just what these re-enactments really prove.

The reporter, who thinks the same, departs the scene to follow the police. He eventually turns up at a short-time motel, where he spends time with a senior hooker (Suweeraya Thongmee).

His visit is recorded on video by the movie’s other major character, a businessman (Ongart Cheamcharoenpornkul) who is in the midst of an existential crisis. He’s got a large stack of videotapes of hotel guests having sex, but appears to get no joy from watching them. At home he shares a meal in total silence with his wife and daughter. It seems there is no joy there either.

The guy, who runs a condom factory in addition to his sideline as the maker of amateur porn films, eventually turns up at a Buddhist temple, where a monk is meditatively sweeping the grounds. Played by the charmingly impish Chalee Choueyai, the saffron-wrapped clergyman launches into a long monologue that’s right up there with Robert Shaw’s USS Indianapolis story in Jaws.

In short, the monk’s lesson – and the movie’s – is that there are no easy answers. Not for the journalist, nor the businessman, nor me.

The ones who seem to fare best in Vanishing Point are the sketchiest characters – that monologuing monk and the senior hooker. They are at least honest about who they are and what they do, while the journalist and the factory owner seem only to be seeking merit or approval.

And perhaps that monk might not be a monk after all. Or perhaps Jakrawal is musing on what makes a monk. Is a monk still a monk once out of his robes? In this way, Vanishing Point offers more potent commentary on the state of contemporary Thai Buddhism that is potentially more controversial than the briefly banned Arbat, with its scenes of a misbehaving novice monk. That picture had to be toned down to get unbanned and was released as Arpat, but it didn’t really have much to say about Buddhism at all.

Dazzling cinematography by up-and-coming filmmaker Phuttiphong Aroonpheng is a highlight of Vanishing Point, and his work includes a bravura tracking shot that follows the businessman’s teenage daughter roller-skating through her small town, with the cameraman seemingly towed from behind and the girl’s knees framing the shot.

More technical prowess is displayed by score composer Pakorn Musikboonlert and sound designer Chalermrat Kaweewattana, who come up with an ominously hypnotic series of pulsating burbles and bloops to give the film a sickening heartbeat.

See also:

• Official website

Related posts:

• In Thai cinemas: Vanishing Point, Hor Taew Taek 5, Water Boyys the Movie
• Festival festival! Young Man in Venice, Vanishing Point in Sao Paulo
• Vanishing Point takes top prize at Rotterdam
• Vanishing Point – no, not that Vanishing Point – appears in Rotterdam's Tiger competition

(Cross-published in The Nation)

Art review: Chulayarnnon Siriphol's Behind the Painting

If Chulayarnnon Siriphol's Behind the Painting were a mechanical drawing, the current art exhibition of his short film would be the "exploded view", as it's broken up, magnified and detailed on more than a dozen screens across four galleries at the Silpakorn University Art Center in Bangkok.

It's also a refreshing approach to interpreting classical literature, as Behind the Painting is yet another one of those Thai stories that has over the decades been repeatedly adapted for film, television and stage.

Written by Sri Burapha, Behind the Painting is very much a product of 1930s Thailand, following the country's adoption of the constitutional monarchy, which gave rise to the different-thinking educated middle class of today. The romantic tragedy, set in Japan, centers on a young Thai man studying there. The student Nopporn is contacted by a family acquaintance, an elderly Japanese gentleman who is coming home with his new wife Kirati, a younger Thai woman of noble birth. He wants Nopporn to squire Kirati around and help her adjust to life in Japan. Naturally, unrequited romance develops between the two young people.

Chulayarnnon is one of those Thai filmmakers whose work is primarily seen in art galleries. His contemporaries in this area include Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who still does art installations even as he has found broader fame for his feature films at the Cannes Film Festival, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong, who broke into features this year with Vanishing Point, now touring the festival circuit.

Chulayarnnon is still sticking with art galleries, though his inventive shorts have been a highlight of the recent editions of the Thai Short Film and Video Festival. He was chosen this year to produce the festival's annual new title sequence, a brief "bumper" that is shown before each program. He actually did two title sequences for this year's fest. One involves soldier statues "guarding" a military base, a blank movie screen in an empty auditorium and villagers praying to shrine. It includes an egg, one of the icons of the Thai Short fest. He also did a stop-motion animation, with insect-like birthday candles and a spiky egg.

He employs multiple experimental-film techniques in his multi-layered works, so the art gallery is really the best place to see Chulayarnnon at his freest range of expression.

Behind the Painting is the result of his participation in the artist-in-residence program last year at the Aomori Contemporary Art Center in Japan. It was previously exhibited there as part of the Aomori's Media/Art Kitchen program curated by Hiroyuki Hattori. In Bangkok, the exhibition is supported by the Japan Foundation, so be sure to complete the survey and reassure them that their efforts are most welcome.

Set in a colonial-style building on Silpakorn University's historic campus, right across the street from the Grand Palace in the old part of Bangkok, Behind the Painting gets progressively more interesting the deeper into it you go.

And it's actually pretty interesting right out of the gate, with the first room devoted to "Forget Me Not", a mixed-media work that comprises a 1:23-minute one-channel video loop of a key scene from Chulayarnnon's film, when Kirati hands Nopporn a "forget me not" flower. Text from a crucial hand-written note that says "forget me not" is rendered in neon and lights up the room, which came pre-installed with a checkerboard tile floor that seems like it has always been part of the exhibit.

The bulk of the short film is in the next room, a darkened gallery with 12 small lightbox/video screens suspended from the ceiling. On the back of each box is a watercolor painting of a still from a key scene, while the front of the box has the video. Each scene, about 2 to 4 minutes or so, runs on a loop.

You walk into the room looking at what I think is the back of the lightboxes – the side with the paintings. I found the best approach to appreciating the piece is to walk around the room clockwise as you enter, and watch each video starting with "The Letter from Siam", in which Nopporn is informed of the impending arrival of the Japanese man and his wife. The tale of Behind the Painting is further spelled out down the line, from "The First Trip" to the reflective epilogue, "Behind the Painting".

Others are "The Last Moment", "Nopporn's Letter", "Nopporn's Dream", "Kirati's Letter", "The Death of Chaokhun", "The Return of Nopporn", "Bad News", "Nopporn's Wedding" and "The Death of Kirati". The titles all read as if they are lifted from sequels to a goofy B-movie franchise. Which makes them great.

In addition to the suspended video screen/lightboxes are those janky little earphones that all galleries use for exhibitions like this. There are English subtitles, but if you listen in, you'll hear dialogue that's lifted from an actual Thai movie of Behind the Painting. It's the one from 2001 that was the last film of revered auteur Cherd Songsri – a director who had an inimitable knack for being faithful to the text of the old stories while still making his films relevant to modern audiences.

Chulayarnnon has employed a similar technique before. For one of his very early works, Golden Sand House, he used the audio from the 1980 Jarunee Saksawat classic Baan Sai Tong over his own version of the often-adapted tale of blue bloods feeling threatened by commoners, filming it in his own home with members of his family, including his very aged and infirm grandparents. Helpfully to me, Golden Sand House was part of a Filmvirus retrospective put on in Bangkok last year, during which Chulayarnnon offered a sneak preview of the partly finished Behind the Painting.

Another of Chulayarnnon's trademarks is that he often appears in his films, and he's an immediately relatable, friendly everyman character. In Behind the Painting, he plays both the Thai student Nopporn and, to hilariously entertaining effect, the refined noblewoman Kirati.

With the help of photo doubles and filmmaking magic that is convincing in various degrees, he puts Nopporn and Kirati in the same scene. He also uses that schoolboy trick of wrapping his arms around his shoulders so from the back it looks like he's making out with someone. Still, it's pretty slick.

About halfway through the lightbox display, I got over Chulayarnnon's drag act and despite his 5 o'clock shadow, I began see him as Kirati, not as a dude playing Kirati. And I suppose that's a commentary on the increasingly fluid nature of society's perceptions of gender and sexuality – notions that are being challenged right now in mainstream culture with TV shows like Transparent and Orange is the New Black winning Emmys, and the debate over same-sex marriage licenses in Kentucky.

As far as acting goes, Chulayarnnon is particularly good in the scene titled "Bad News", in which Nopporn, seeming very cheerful and pleased with himself, announces to Kirati that he's getting married. Kirati's face just drops right to the floor, even though in Chulayarnnon's mind her crestfallen expression was probably much more subtle.

Another fun scene is "Nopporn's Wedding", in which the tuxedo-clad Nopporn and his lovely Thai bride in her white wedding gown cavort in the landmark places where Thai brides and grooms tend to have their photos taken, like Sanam Luang, the public park that's a stone's throw from the art gallery and the Grand Palace. They also twirl about at the Democracy Monument, a symbolic spot I'm not so sure is very popular with couples or anybody these days.

Further concessions to contemporary comfort are found in the scenes from modern Tokyo, including Nopporn meeting Chaokhun and his bride outside the Japan Railways station.

After I did a round or two of the room with the lightboxes, I ventured deeper into the museum and was happily surprised to find there's more. Among the other works prepared for the exhibition is a table with an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on it. It's from "Nopporn's Dream". Titled "Incomplete Dream", it's 1,000 puzzle pieces, arranged just so the couple's faces are not yet filled in. If you visit, especially you obsessive-compulsive types, please don't feel compelled to complete the puzzle.

And finally, there's the piece "Mitake", in which you can actually go behind the painting of the painting from Behind the Painting. One one side of the 8-foot-wide lightbox is the titular watercolor work that the classically trained artist Kirati made of her and Nopporn sitting by a pool in a Technicolor forest. The other side has the video, containing scenes of Kirati's art education and her isolated, noble upbringing.

Helpfully, there's a little nook behind the painting, with stools arranged to sit on to view the video. It's also a good spot to take a break and soak it all in, which I needed after spending I guess close to an hour viewing the pieces. Meanwhile, a smattering of other visitors, including a small group, breezed in and out in what seemed like five minutes. Give it more time than that.

After seeing the incomplete version of Behind the Painting last year, I told Chulayarnnon that I did't feel the need to see any other version of that story. Of course at the time, I had no idea what he was planning, so now it's the art-gallery edition that must be seen and experienced, and for me it is the definitive version of Behind the Painting.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol's Behind the Painting opened on September 10 at the Art Center of Silpakorn University Wang Thapra. It is on show until October 13, 2015. Directions to the gallery are available online.

In Thai cinemas: Behind the Painting, No Escape, SPL 2

Time to get out of the cinema and into the art gallery, as the interesting and talented video artist and filmmaker Chulayarnnon Siriphol offers his interpretation of the classic Thai story Behind the Painting.

Set in Japan, the tragic romance involves a young Thai student who has been employed by an elderly Japanese man to look after his young blue-blooded Thai wife. Written in 1937 by popular author Sri Burapha, the novel has been adapted for film, television and stage many times, including a 2001 film version that was the last feature by the revered Thai auteur Cherd Songsri.

In an homage to Cherd, his film is woven into the multi-layered fabric of Chulayarnnon's entertaining experimental work, which has him portraying both the young man and, in the grand tradition of theatrical cross-dressing, the young woman.

I've actually seen this, in a Film Virus retrospective last year, and I told Chulayarnnon afterward that I don't feel I need to see any other version.

It was created last year during Chulayarnnon's participation in the artist-in-residence program at the Aomori Contemporary Art Center in Japan.

Organized by the Japan Foundation and curated by the Aomori center's Hiroyuki Hattori, Behind the Painting is at the Silpakorn University Art Center, opening tomorrow night (invitation only) and running until October 10. Directions to the gallery are available online.

Meanwhile, Thai distributors are dumping a load of movies into cinemas this week, clearing the books ahead of the next blockbuster season.

Among the eight or nine titles is No Escape. Owen Wilson stars as a water engineer who has moved with his family to an anonymous, strife-torn Southeast Asian country. There, wherever that is, a rebellion breaks out and the family become targets as anti-foreigner sentiments boil over. Lake Bell and Pierce Brosnan also star.

There have been at least a couple controversies over this production, which had the working title of The Coup when it was being made in northern Thailand a year or so ago. One was when Wilson posed for a photo with whistle-blowing anti-government protesters. There was also a fuss over the signage in the film, which in a desperate move by the country's film minders to strip any Thai identity out of the picture, so as to not harm tourism, was written in Khmer and turned upside down. That has led to No Escape being banned in the newly emerging cinema market of Cambodia, amid rumors that it would be banned in Thailand as well. No such luck.

Critical reception has been, uh, mixed. It's by the writer-director pair of John Erick and Drew Dowdle, who previously did the found-footage thrillers Quarantine and As Above, So Below.

Thai martial-arts star Tony Jaa makes his much-anticipated debut in a Hong Kong action film with SPL 2: A Time for Consequences.

He's a tough Thai cop who has taken a job as a prison guard while he tries to raise money to pay for his sick daughter's treatment. On the job, he's assigned to watch over a prisoner (Wu Jing) who is actually a Hong Kong police officer who has gone way undercover in a relentless bid to bring down the head of a human-trafficking ring.

Louis Koo and Simon Yam also star. Cheang Pou-soi (Dog Bite Dog, Motorway) directs. This is a sequel-in-name-only to the terrific 2005 Hong Kong crime thriller SPL: Sha Po Leng, which had Donnie Yen throwing down with the formidable Sammo Hung. Wu Jing and Simon Yam were in that one too, but played different characters.

A box-office success in China, critical reception ;for SPL 2 has been fairly positive – much better than for Jaa's English-language debut Skin Trade, which I actually kinda liked. SPL 2 is Thai-dubbed only with English subtitles, but still looks like fun.

Also of note in Thai cinemas this week is cult director Bruce LaBruce's offbeat romantic comedy Gerontophilia, the first release from a newly established indie distribution shingle Doo Nang Took Wan, run by Ken Thapanan Wichitrattakarn. He's a movie-loving public-relations professional who got into showbiz a few months ago when he single-handedly brought the Brazilian coming-of-age gay drama The Way He Looks to the Bangkok big screen.

But perhaps the most noteworthy release this week is The Assassin, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien's first martial-arts film. After making a buzzworthy premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the best director prize, it comes to Bangkok in a prestige-focused release, screening in Mandarin with English and Thai subtitles at Apex, House, Major Ratchayothin, Major Rama III, Paragon, Quartier CineArt and SFW CentralWorld.

Thai Short 19: Winners, R.D. Pestonji and Payut Ngaokrachang reviews

Deeply personal relationships were a common thread running through many of the prize-winning entries in the 19th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, which wrapped up on Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

The festival’s top prize for general filmmakers, the R.D. Pestonji Award, went to After Image by Patana Chirawong. Full of warmth and humour, After Image was about an elderly gay man contacting his university crush, a straight guy who years ago had promised to take him on a date if he reached the age of 70. They meet in the forest, at an archaeology dig for dinosaur fossils. The promise of youth has faded away, and these old fellows are in touch with a past that is older than either can remember. A shadowy figure of a brontosaurus ambles by. Pretty nifty.

Runner-up winners were Neither Here Nor There by Skan Aryurapong, which was a succinct portrait of a wheelchair-bound man and his caretaker/lover, while the meta-heavy Motherland dealt with a young pregnant woman seeking advice from a co-worker at a factory.

And a special mention went to Hta Kwa’s Our Footprints, another prize-winning entry from the Chiang Mai NGO Friends Without Borders, which looks at the continuing struggles of Thailand’s indigenous people to continue their traditional ways of life in the forest. The disappearance of Karen activist Pholachi Billy Rakchongcharoen looms in the backdrop.

A scene from After Image, winner of the R.D. Pestonji Award.

Another major award winner was Dreamscape by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai. An entry in the Duke Award documentary competition, it won the Popular Vote from audience polling as well as the BACC Award.

Other notable finalists in the Pestonji competition included Our, a tender portrait of a young just-married couple taking their honeymoon by the beach. It's directed by Sivaroj Kongsakul of Eternity/Tee Rak fame, who has developed ninja skills in tugging heartstrings with his highly emotional shorts.

I also liked Spaghetti by Sittisak Kum-ai, which had a guy struggling to keep up a long-distance relationship with his girlfriend, who he hopes will return to him before the expiration date on a package of pasta he's tucked away in a cabinet.

There were chuckles for some other entries, such as Jakkrapan Srivichai's Horror Radio, in which a security guard who listens to spooky radio serials calls into the station one night with his own story. Symmetry by Ukrit Malai had an older fellow reflecting on a different, parallel life of a brother (or was it his son?), which sees living-room recliners and a Playstation (also a ping-pong table) transported magically from a house to an open field. And there was good fun to be had in Director and Actor, directed by and starring Weera Rukbankeru, which had him struggling to direct himself in various scenes.

And the festival wouldn't be complete without at least one mysterious jungle thriller. Perennial festival entrant Pramote Sangsorn headed into the woods for Sudd Song Nor, which had a reporter camping out with a big-game hunter in search of the last rhino. Homoerotic tendencies surface in a discussion about taking the rhino's horn, but leaving the unseen beast alive. Later on, both men cover themselves from head to toe with mud.

Prince Johnny, winner of the Payut Ngaokrachang Award.

I really connected with the block of animated entries in the Payut Ngaokrachang Award competition, which is named for Thailand's pioneering maker of animated shorts and features. The audience was sparse for the Sunday morning show, but included a cool farang dad who brought his two small children. Still, I heard gasping from the kids when the cartoons took dark turns, which were frequent.

The top prize Winner Prince Johnny by Patradol Kitcharoen was wonderfully morbid with its story of a fairy-tale prince trying to revive the corpse of a long-dead princess locked in a tower. Bleaker still was a runner-up winner Sound of the Silence by Akapop Khansorn, which deals with an imprisoned woman.

There was conflict aplenty in Stained White by Thanchanok Phruetkittiwong, Vichuda Surattichaikul and Supisara Songpirote, in which Red City kids and Green City kids just want to play together but instead have to fight. There was also the special mention winner Black-White by Jaturon Jetwiriyanon, which had Germanic-looking chess pieces in an endless war – no worries about Nazi imagery here, it's used to show the horror of war and isn't glorified as it has been in cases that crop up from time to time in news about Thailand.

Simply entertaining entries included the special mention winners Breaking Zoo by Prakasit Nuansri (about an escaped overheated gorilla); Lamp by Narueporn Winiyakul (about a fishing cat making friends with cute anglerfish) and the fun football-themed Kickoff by Twatpong Tangsajjapoj.

Luukmaai, a finalist entry in the Payut Ngaokrachang competition.

I'm surprised Luukmaai by Rachaneekorn Uthaithammarat didn't win a prize. The story of a forest-dwelling man who befriends a tree spirit, the character design really reminded me of Payut's work in The Adventure of Sudsakorn, which to me is remarkable, because not many Thai animators actually seem to be influenced by Payut, who had his own style, but could be compared to Tex Avery or maybe Disney.

These days, most Thai animation takes Japanese anime as its cue, not that there's anything wrong with that. The anime style was especially evident in the crazily sick Gokicha Love Story by Chidchanok Saengkawin, which had a cockroach who thinks she's a princess trying to woo a guy, but the guy is horrified because he only sees her as an insect. Festival Rush by Chawanat Rattanaprakarn also looked like anime, but told a distinctively Thai story, with a boy at a temple fair chasing down masked criminals who stole the doll he won for his sweetheart.

And 3D computer graphic animation continues to progress. Aside from the award-winners like Black-White and Breaking Zoo, memorable entries included the heist comedy The Sneaker by Chattida Ajjimakul, and the nature-themed To the Light by Jane Horsakul.

Worth noting is this year's festival title, a "bumper" that is created new each year by various notable filmmakers. This year, it was the turn of Chulayarnon Siriphol, a perennial award-winner in past years, whose entries are thought-provoking, satiric and, most importantly to me, entertaining. Chualyarnon actually did two titles. One had images of soldier statues and people offering prayers to a shrine, and an auditorium with an empty movie screen. I won't comment further on what I think it means. Chulayarnon also did a stop-motion thing involving birthday candles with nails stuck in them so they resembled insects, crawling over someone's skin. Of course, both festival titles had images of eggs, which is part of the iconography of the Thai Short Film and Video Festival.

New to the festival this year is an additional cash prize, free equipment rental and use of a production crew to the top-prize winner of the R.D. Pestonji Award from VS Service, a company that has long been involved with providing services to foreign movie productions. Established in 1985 with a single generator to hire out, among VS Service’s early clients was Santa Film, a production services firm run by a son of Pestonji, who is regarded as Thailand’s first auteur filmmaker. The award is especially symbolic for the head of VS Service, cinematographer Pithai "Pete" Smithsuth, who has now taken over the company his father started.

Symmetry, a finalist entry in the R.D. Pestonji competition.

Anyway, here are the winners in the 19th Thai Short Film and Video Festival:

Popular Vote

• Dreamscape by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai

International Competition

• Best Short Film: Rene R Letters by Lisa Reboulleau (France)
• Special Mention: Fallen Leaves by Masha Kondakova (Ukraine) and Moving in Circles by Maxim Dashkin (Russia)

R.D. Pestonji Award

• Winner: After Image by Patana Chirawong
• Runner-up: Motherland by Varinda Naronggrittikun; Neither Here Nor There by Skan Aryurapong
• Special Mention: Our Footprints by Hta Kwa

White Elephant Award (undergraduate students)

• Winner: Rose Moon and the Missing Sun by Tulyawat Sajjatheerakul
• Runner-up: The Country Boys by Krailas Phondongnok; Temperature of Roomtone by Pamornporn Tandiew
• Special Mention: Glowstick by Pahphawee Jinnasith; Once Upon a Time by Jantraya Suriyong and Siripassorn Umnuaysombat; Oun Kwa Nhee Kor Phee Leaw by Yanisa Pornawalai

Special White Elephant (youth films)

• Winner: Last Summer by Dapho Moradokpana
• Runner-up: What a Wonderful World by Jirapat Thaweechuen, Thanawat Noomcharoen and Pu-ton Thongtan
• Special mention: Untitled by Rachapol Sangsri and Tanyawat Sajjateerakul

Payut Ngaokrachang Award (animation)

• Winner: Prince Johnny by Patradol Kitcharoen
• Runner-Up: Fragile by Pennapa Chanwerawong; Stained White by Thanchanok Phruetkittiwong, Vichuda Surattichaikul and Supisara Songpirote; Sound of the Silence by Akapop Khansorn
• Special Mention: Breaking Zoo by Prakasit Nuansri; Lamp by Narueporn Winiyakul; Black-White by Jaturon Jetwiriyanon and Kickoff by Twatpong Tangsajjapoj

Duke Award (documentary)

• Winner: Sinmalin by Chaweng Chaiyawan
• Runner-up: Michael’s by Kunnawut Boonreak; The Spirit of the Age by Wichanon Somumjarn
• Special Mention: Chumchon Khon Khaya by Thitipat Rotchanakorn and Pawee Melanon; Pak Bara by Apichon Rattanapayon and Watcharee Rattanakree

Cinetoys Best Cinematography Award

• Last Scene by Rajchapruek Tiyajamorn

Vichitmatra Award

• My Grandfather’s Photobook by Nutthapon Rakkhatham and Phatthana Paiboon
• Fon by Aekaphong Saranset
• If You’re a Bird, I’ll Be Your Sky by Visuta Matanom
• Yhahok by Nathan Homsup

BACC Award

• Once Upon a Time by Jantraya Suriyong and Siripassorn Umnuaysombat
• Dreamscape by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai

Pirabkhao Award

• Sinmalin by Chaweng Chaiyawan

Best Actor

• Arachaporn Pokinpakorn from Glowstick

(Adapted from an article in The Nation)

Thai culture comes to Piccadilly in the Thai Film Festival U.K.

Thailand's Ministry of Culture is bringing seven recent films to London in the Thai Film Festival U.K., which runs from June 25 to 27 at the Princess Anne Theatre at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Piccadilly, London, home of the Bafta Awards.

A mix of mainstream commercial features, including action and horror, as well as animation plus an independent drama and a documentary, the Thai Film Festival will open with the GTH studio's award-winning drama The Teacher's Diary (คิดถึงวิทยา, Kid Tueng Wittaya), directed by Nitiwat Taratorn starring actress "Ploy" Chermarn Boonyasak, who will both be present for the screening.

Another award-winning entry is indie director Lee Chatametikool's drama Concrete Clouds (ภวังค์รัก, Phawang Rak), which is also part of the Thai Indie Fest being put on by U.K. distributor Day for Night.

Londoners will also get the latest adaptation of Plae Kao (แผลเก่า, a.k.a. The Scar), a Thai literary classic by Mai Muengderm. A star-crossed romance set in suburban Bangkok in the 1930s, it has been adapted many times for film and TV, with Cherd Songsri's 1977 feature being the best regarded. But last year, dramatist and frequent movie-remaker ML Bhandevanov "Mom Noi" Devakula offered his own interpretation, with fresh-faced stars Chaiyapol Julian Pupart from Mom Noi's Jan Dara remake and Davika Hoorne from Pee Mak Phra Khanong as the leads. According to The Nation, Mom Noi has created an "international version" for the London screening, which adds 45 more minutes to the cut that was released in Thai cinemas last August.

Genre-film fans will be paid service with martial-arts star Tony Jaa's swan song with the Sahamongkol studio, Tom-Yum-Goong 2, and from Five Star Production, there's director Tiwa Methaisong's supernatural horror thriller Ghost Coins (เกมปลุกผี, Game Plook Phi).

The painstaking efforts by Thailand's animation industry are featured in The Story of Mahajanaka (พระมหา ชนก ), an adaptation of a devotional tale written by His Majesty the King.

Finally, there's a more-grounded look at contemporary Thai life in Krisda Tipchaimeta's critically hailed documentary Somboon (ปู่สมบรูณ์, Poo Somboon), which follow the extraordinary efforts of an ordinary elderly gentleman as he provides round-the-clock care for his chronically ailing wife of 45 years.

The film fest is part of the Totally Thai celebrations, put together by MiniCult in honor of the 60th birthday of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Other activities include a classical dance show at Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night – 130 years after a historic khon performance there for Queen Victoria – and Thailand Eye, a contemporary art exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in November and December.

The film festival is free, but reservations are required. Check Facebook for more details.

Open Secrets revealed in Chulalongkorn documentary exhibition

If you don't mind trying to watch films in the not-always-ideal setting of an art gallery, then perhaps you'll want to check out documentaries by noted Thai filmmakers and visual artists in the exhibition Open Secrets from tomorrow night until April 10 at Chulalongkorn University's Art Center in Bangkok.

Among the directors is Jakrawal Nilthamrong, a visual artist and experimental filmmaker. He just premiered his debut feature Vanishing Point to award-winning acclaim at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. While we patiently wait for that show up in local cinemas, the Chula show will feature three of his other works from the past few years, including the mid-length effort Unreal Forest, which he made in Zambia as part of an African initiative by the Rotterdam film fest. Others are Hangman and Orchestra.

Other directors are the trio of Kaweenipon Ketprasit, Kong Rithdee and Panu Aree, who make documentaries that focus on their Islamic faith and the unsung lives of moderate Muslims. Among their works will be the electrifying Baby Arabia, a feature about a Bangkok-based Muslim rock band that performs songs in Arabic and Malay. They will also screen Gadhafi, about a Thai dude with an unusual name.

In all, the exhibition will screen 11 films. Others taking part are Pisut Srimhok, Santiphap Inkong-ngam and Sutthirat Supaparinya.

Friday night's opening will feature a talk by the filmmakers, “Documentary Films: Mirrors of Society”, at 5pm. The venue is The Art Center on the seventh floor of the Center for Academic Resources (the library) at Chulalongkorn University's campus off Phayathai Road.

Filmvirus puts Chulayarnnon Siriphol in spotlight

Chulayarnnon Siriphol is a perennial award winner at the Thai Short Film and Video Festival, where his films, usually satiric views on Thai society, are a highlight. They include documentaries, spoof documentaries and experimental films.

This Saturday, Filmvirus and the Reading Room offer a chance to see a bunch of them all at once with Wildtype Masterclass 001: Fuck Alligator.

The selection goes back as far as 2005 with Golden Sand House, and includes his 2008 winning student film Danger (Director's Cut), 2011's award winners Mrs. Nuan Who Can Recall Her Past Lives and A Brief History of Memory and this year's award-winner Myth of Modernity.

There are two programs, at 1 and 3.30pm, followed at 6 by a masterclass and talk by Chulayarnnon.

The venue is the Reading Room, a fourth-floor walk-up gallery on Silom Soi 19, opposite Silom Center.

Thai Short 18: Endless, Nameless takes top prize

Cabezón (Big Head), winner of the International Competition.

Endless, Nameless, a highly experimental film that was actually shot on film, won the top-prize R.D. Pestonji Award for general Thai filmmakers at the 18th Thai Short Film and Video Festival on Sunday.

Directed by Pathompon Tesprateep and shot on Super 8 footage that was then processed by hand, the flickering images depicted soldiers gathered in a high-ranking officer's backyard. They are pitted against various objects, inanimate and otherwise, including a hissing cobra, which sways back and forth.

The pick of Endless, Nameless came as the Thai Short Film and Video Festival paid tribute to the Thai Film Archive's 30th anniversary, with Archive EX, a special program of Thai experimental films from pre-digital age.

But the triumph of the 8mm experimental film also comes as one of the festival's long-running awards, the Kodak Filmschool Award, for student films made with Kodak stock, is no more. Aside from Endless, Nameless, no other competition entries were made on film – all were digital productions. Meanwhile, two production service companies, VS Service and Cinetoys, stepped in this year with two new special awards, both honoring movies about movie-making.

The Cinetoys' prize went to Rest in Peace by Nonthakorn Patphol (The Thai title ภาพยนตร์เรื่องสุดท้ายพระเอกตายตอนจบ refers to the action-movie hero dying in the end) while VS Services' gong went to Endslate, capturing a day on the set of an indie movie.

Other entries in the R.D. Pestonji competition, named for Thailand's pioneering auteur of the 1950s, included the runner-up Endlessly by Sivaroj Kongsakul, about a grandmother and her grandchild spending a day together. It was also among winners of the Vichamatra Award for distinctive achievements in filmmaking.

Another Pestonji entry, Isan Mars, about a project to send workers from Thailand's rural Northeast to Mars, was among the winners of the BACC Award, instituted last year by the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, which hosts the festival.

Also from the Pestonji line-up was The Way of Life, Tah Kwa's look at the forced ouster of indigenous people from their traditional homes in the upland forests to the lowlands. It won a special mention in the Pestonji category and the Pirabkhao (White Dove) Award from the 14 October 73 Memorial Foundation for films highlighting social concerns.

In the International Competition, the top prize went to Cabezón (Big Head), a Chilean comedy in which a painter is tasked with painting a portrait of a client's pet dog – an old stubborn and lazy mastiff. The painter eventually bonds with his subject, plying the epically drooling canine with sliced ham.

The White Elephant Award top prize went to the coming-of-age friendship drama Menstrual Synchrony by Jirassaya Wongsuthin, which also shared the Popular Vote award with The Second Friendship Book by Pakchayos Charanchol, which competed in the Special White Elephant category for filmmakers under 18.

In animation, the Payut Ngaokrachang Award went to Neither Lit Nor Dark by Chanon Treenate. The prize is named after Thailand's pioneering animator. Among the runners-up was I Can Fly by perennial award-winner Twatpong Tangsajapoj, which also won a Vichamatra Award. A special mention went to The Bird and the Fish by Kanitrin Thailamthong, in which a lifelike cartoon pigeon witnesses a fish falling from the sky. It also won a BACC Award.


BACC Award

• The Bird and the Fish by Kanitrin Thailamthong
• Isan Mars by P. Sangsorn

Special Award from Cinetoys and Services Co., Ltd.

• Rest in Peace by Nonthakorn Patphol

Special Award from VS Service Company Limited

• Endslate by Chinnavorn Nongyoa

Pirabkhao award

• The Way of Life by Tah Kwa

Duke Award (documentaries)

• Special Mention – Khon Tie Tor by Kittipat Kanoknak and Dad by Tipwan Narintorn
• Runner-up – Once in a Year by Teerapan Ngaojeeranan and Lice in the Wonderland by Boonyarit Wiengnon
• Grand-Prix – Rao Choana Yoo Kub Kwai (เราชาวนาอยู่กับควาย ) by Wachara Kunha

R.D. Pestonji Award International Competition

• Special Mention – Mama by Lidia Sheinin, Russia
• Best International Short Film – Cabezón (Big Head) by Jairo Boisier, Chile 

R.D. Pestonji Award (for general Thai filmmakers)

• Special Mention – The Way of Life by Tah Kwa, Auntie Maam Has Never Had a Passport by Soroyos Prapapan and Narayana’s Arrow Spaceship: Between the Orbits of Mars and Jupiter by Paranoid Team
• Runner-up – Endlessly by Sivroj Kongsakul, Somewhere Only We Know by Wichanon Somumjarn and Myth of Modernity by Chulayarnnon Siriphol
• Grand Prix – Endless, Nameless by Pathompon Tesprateep

Payut Ngaokrachang Award (animation)

• Special Mention – The Bird and the Fish by Kanitrin Thailamthong, Congratulations by Pathompong Thititan and Aelio by Pongpreecha Kittiporniwat
• Runner-Up – I Can Fly by Twatpong Tangsajapoj and The Blanket by Pasraporn Tampanon
• Grand Prix – Neither Lit Nor Dark by Chanon Treenate

Special White Elephant (students under 18)

• Special Mention – Past Perfect by Wethaka Jarampornsakul and Sirya Lertsmithwong and The Second Friendship Book by Pakchayos Charanchol
• Grand Prix – The Misplaced Flower by Zo Chamuleur

White Elephant (student films)

• Special Mention – Duct Move Past by Nichapa Trongsiri  , Hula Hoop by Reawadee Ngamloon, Khmer Talisman by Pissamai Duangnoi and /'Spel,baund by Nat Eiamkhunthongsuk
• Runner-Up – 329 by Tinnawat Chankloi and Gandharva by Theerapat Ngathong
• Grand Prix – Menstrual Synchrony by Jirassaya Wongsuthin

JENESYS 2.0 Award (Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youth)

• A-ANT by Natpong Prasri
• Inspiration by Punya Choo
• Red Shoes by Wannisa Pinjai
• Dream and Bad Day by Pakawadee Pongisrapan
• Home by Apinya Mahatham
• Brush by Nat Watanakul
• Do you? by Patraporn Rachatakittisuntorn
• Illusive Dream by Patrin Chaopanich
• Window Job by Parunyu Chaisri

Best Actor

• Ornanong Thaisriwong from Anna

Vichitmatra Award

• Scent of the Morning Sun by Monkham Khukhuntin and Harin Paesongthai
• Goodbye by Nakorn Chaisri
• I Can Fly by Twatpong Tangsajapoj
• Endlessly by Sivaroj Kongsakul

Popular Vote

• Menstrual Synchrony by Jirassaya Wongsuthin
• The Second Friendship Book by Pakchayos Charanchol

Post by Thai Short Film & Video Festival.

Relaunched Silpathorn Awards honor Kongdej

Award-winning writer-director Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (คงเดช จาตุรันต์รัศมี) will add another piece of hardware to his trophy shelf – the Silpathorn Award – announced yesterday during a press conference at the Culture Ministry's new Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Centre in Bangkok.

The Silpathorn, honoring mid-career Thai contemporary artists, was inaugurated 10 years ago by the ministry's Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC). It was presented annually until 2010, and has been on hiatus for the past four years.

For Kongdej, the Silpathorn adds to his haul this year for his latest film, Tang Wong (ตั้งวง), an indie drama that critiqued contemporary Thai culture with a story about four teenage boys who have to learn a traditional dance in order to fulfill a vow to a spirit-house shrine. Made with the support of the OCAC, Tang Wong premiered in last year's Berlin fest, and went on to win several awards at home, including four Golden Swans at the Subhanahongsa Awards, as well as gongs from the Bangkok Critics Assembly and the Thai Director Association.

Tang Wong was Kongdej's second feature as an independent director, following his quirk-filled 2012 psychological drama P-047, which was also a big award winner. His 2003 debut feature, the coming-of-age sex comedy Sayew, was released by Sahamongkol Film International, as was his sophomore effort, the comedy-drama Cherm (Midnight My Love), in which comedian Petchtai Wongkamlao made a dramatic breakthrough as a lonely taxi driver who strikes up a relationship with a massage-parlor girl. Kongdej then jumped over to GTH for 2008's Kod (Handle Me with Care), about a three-armed man on a road trip with a large-breasted woman.

Kongdej has also penned numerous mainstream-industry screenplays, including 2004's weepy romance The Letter, Tony Jaa's lost-elephant adventure Tom-Yum-Goong, the amnesiac Ananda Everingham drama Me ... Myself, Nonzee Nimibutr's high-seas swashbuckler Queens of Langkasuka, Kantana Animation's Echo Planet (for which he also provided voice talent and an original song) and last year's teen horror Last Summer.

His latest efforts, Tang Wong and P-047, were independent, with Soros Sukhum as producer. Their next project is So Be It, which has been picked up by the new Thai indie outfit Mosquito Films Distribution.

Previous Silpathorn film honorees are Pen-ek Ratanruang (2004), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2005), Wisit Sasanatieng (2006), Thunska Pansittivorakul (2007), Nonzee Nimibutr (2008), Pimpaka Towira (2009) and Aditya Assarat (2010).

The Silpathorn Award's 10th anniversary was commemorated earlier this year with a performance series that included a screening of a shortened version of Thunska's The Terrorists.

According to The Nation, other Silpathorn Award honorees this year are conceptual artist Surasi Kusolwong, actress-playwright Jarunan Phantachat of B-Floor Theatre, architect Suriya Umpansiritatana, writer Rewat Panpipat, conductor Vanich Potavanich, typographer Pairoj Teeraprapar and product designer Chaiyut Plypetch.

Each winner receives 100,000 baht and a commemorative lapel pin.  The awards presentation ceremony will be held on July 17 along with an exhibition that will run through July 27.

Berlinale 2014: Jakrawal rolls into Forum Expanded

Stone Cloud

Experimental filmmaker Jakrawal Nilthamrong is taking part in this year's Berlin International Film Festival, with three entries in the Forum Expanded program, Stone Cloud, Hangman and INTRANSIT.

Here's the synopsis for Stone Cloud, a 30-minute short:

A monk asks villagers to move a big stone up to the hill. He wishes to smooth the rock so he can sit on it and meditate. While the monk is sculpting the stone a state of deep contemplation occurs. He sees past, present and future.

“The story in Stone Cloud derives from a monk friend who was ordained and lived in a jungle temple. He was a gifted film director and cinematographer, winning numerous awards before left the worldly life to become an isolated monk. I always try to visit him as much as I can … And every time I saw him and spent the nights at the jungle temple a marvelous peacefulness occurred.” (Jakrawal Nilthamrong)

His other two projects, Hangman and INTRANSIT, are in the group exhibition What Do We Know When We Know Where Something Is?

Hangman is an execution scene based on the memory of the son of the late Mr. Chavoret Jaruboon, Thailand's last executioner who passed away recently of cancer. Coincidentally, he's the subject of an upcoming biographical film The Last Executioner by director Tom Waller and starring Only God Forgives crimefighter Vithaya Pansringarm.

INTRANSIT is a multimedia installation that was the centerpiece of a group exhibition last year at Chulalongkorn Art Center in Bangkok. An ode to a medium that's fast disappearing in this digital age, it featured a loop of film running through a specially-equipped classroom projector. "Through spectacular images of a planet in creation, made using 1960s sci-fi special effects incorporating organic materials, scale models and shooting on 35mm film, INTRANSIT presents a spectacular testament to a medium in transition," says the program description.

According to Jakrawal, he's sending his loop of film to Berlin, with the festival organizers taking care of rigging up a projector to run it.

Another interesting entry in Berlin is Singaporean filmmaker Tan Pin Pin's documentary To Singapore, With Love, which features interviews with Singaporeans living in political exile, including one who lived in Thailand. Controversially, it was dropped from last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok, with the official reason being that the filmmaker hadn't obtained permission to shoot in Thailand from the Thailand Film Office.

Also in Berlin, four young Thai indie filmmakers – Pathompong "Big" Manakitsomboon, Wanlop Rungkumjad, Rasiguet Sookkarn and Sompot "Boat" Chidgasornpongse – are taking part in the Talent Campus.

The 64th Berlin International Film Festival runs from February 6 to 16.

Update: This post has been altered from an earlier version to restate facts about To Singapore, With Love being dropped from the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

Apichatpong-a-rama: Mirage City Cinema at the Sharja Biennial

The Mirage City Cinema. Photo courtesy of Kick the Machine.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is taking part in Sharjah Biennial 11 (SB11), curating a film program in the Persian Gulf city with the open-air Mirage City Cinema.

Designed by Apichatpong in collaboration with architect Ole Scheeren, who created the floating cinema for Apichatpong's exclusive little Film On the Rocks Yao Noi festival last year, the Mirage City Cinema features programming by such folks as Steve Anker, dean of the School of Film and Video at CalArts, Apitchatpong's Film on the Rocks collaborator Tilda Swinton, Mehelli Modi, founder of Second Run DVD and Filipino filmmaker-poet Khavn De La Cruz.

Here's more about it from Ole Scheeren's blog:

Mirage City Cinema interweaves elements of Sharjah’s historical fabric with filmic scenarios to create an ethereal courtyard cinema experience. Inspiration is drawn from the historical traditions of Sharjah. Floor carpets, which were traditionally used for sleeping and relaxing, are scattered around the courtyard; this draws upon the common practice of using carpets to sleep on rooftops – a tradition now largely defunct due to the prevalence of air-conditioning units occupying roof space. Coral, which was formerly mixed with mud plaster to build the outer walls of houses and whose use as construction material is now forbidden, is recycled from decaying walls and used for the ground of the cinema space.

The fragmented shape of the cinematic space, and the choreography of projection and sound from different directions create a sense of disorientation and surrealism. The idea of sleep, dream and memory is central to the project.

In the words of Apichatpong Weerasethakul: "Mirage City Cinema reflects the idea of a place where a cinema of illusion arises and flourishes. A place of ghosts. I was interested in the moment when we free our minds and bodies of preconceived ideas, and allow ourselves to be possessed."

In Mirage City Cinema, the use of recycled matter and the drawing upon the ancient traditions of Sharjah connects the past with the present. Personal memories and stories are central. As Scheeren explains: "The idea was to create a city within a city, or rather, to evoke memories of the city’s past. Plaza, courtyard and rooftops all melt into a texture of shared stories of the city and the people who inhabit it."

The full program is at the festival website. The Sharja Biennial started on March 13 and runs until May 13.

Meanwhile, Apichatpong has been keep busy, hunting in Hong Kong last month for funds for his next feature project, Cemetery of Kings. Although it's been thought he's taking a break from filmmaking, he told The Hollywood Reporter:

"I’m not sure you could call it a break, really – even though that’s what some people have been saying. I’ve made short films, curated a film festival, judged a film festival, did some installations and have been busy raising two dogs – which is actually a lot of work."

Love of Siam gets 'redux' treatment

Following his cheeky shot-for-shot remake of Bangkok Traffic Love Story for last month's "Live at the Scala" performance-art micro-festival, some folks may have wondered why British filmmaker Richard DeDomenici didn't opt for another Thai film that might have been closer to home for "Live at the Scala" – Love of Siam, which had a scene that was actually filmed in the Scala Theatre's spacious art-deco lobby.

Well, before he left Bangkok, DeDomenici rectified that oversight, and sat down on the landmark Scala bench to re-enact a 1-minute scene from Chookiat Sakveerakul's Love of Siam for The Love of Siam: Redux (embedded above).

With DeDomenici taking Mario Maurer's role, and fellow "Live at the Scala" artist Brian Lobel taking Witwisit Hirunwongkul's, the pair acted out a conversation in which Witwisit's Mew and Mario's Tong meet on the bench in the Scala, and Mew ends up inviting Tong over to his house so he can make him a music CD.

Forest Fringe's Andy Field, curator of "Live at the Scala", pitched in as "best boy".

It's a short and simple scene – not near as complicated as the six-minute remake of Bangkok Traffic Love Story, but is perhaps even more valuable as a video homage to one of Thai cinema's great moments inside Bangkok's last remaining single-screen movie theater.

Oh, and if you missed Bangkok Traffic Love Story: Redux, it's embedded below.

Live at the Scala remakes Bangkok Traffic Love Story

Bangkok's most unique cinema, the historic Scala Theater, hosted what was likely the most unique event in its history this past week.

Held from Thursday to Saturday, Live at the Scala was a "micro-festival" put on by the British Council and curated by the UK's Forest Fringe, which brought in a half dozen or so acts. The event featured performance art, installations and video. The performances aimed to make use of all of the Scala's space, chiefly the spacious lobby, with its art-deco frieze, sweeping stairway and chandelier.

A "bar" serving inexpensive beer was set up with a smattering of squat tables and stools for the audience to gather around.

Starting at around 7pm (the Scala is a working cinema showing first-run movies and had a matinee screening of Mama earlier in the day), the Live at the Scala proceedings kicked off with Action Hero, a work by James Stenhouse and Gemma Paintin in which they act out a movie western, with members of the audience standing in for various villains, such as opposing gunslingers or card cheats. A pointed finger is a gun and when you shoot it, you make a "phiew" sound. The duo, playing the hero and the whore, are dressed in white, and before it's all over, they are covered in "blood" – ketchup, actually.

Movies were the interlinking theme of the performances and art.

Throughout the whole show, another performer, Brian Lobel, set up a bedroom at the base of the Scala's stairs with television sets and a collection of dance-movie videos (actual VHS tapes) and invited the audience come dance with him. They would put on headphones and hoof along, trying to match the steps from such movies as Sister Act, Newsies and The Breakfast Club.

All around the lobby there were posters for movies by a fictional actress Natalie Gorgeous. The posters were just the black text on white backgrounds for such movies as Gorgeous in the Rain (Fox), Gorgeous with a Gun (Warner Bros) and Fists of Gorgeous (Golden Harvest). Even the side of the Scala marquee had a Gorgeous movie, Brave New Gorgeous. An accompanying booklet for Tim Etchell's Gorgeous at 25 Frames per Second explained everything.

Did you know the Scala has dressing rooms? Well, it does, and after Action Hero, the audience was invited to move around and check out the other stuff going on. One of the dressing rooms was made into a black box hosting the video installation, Cinema and Space, Extracting the Unrecognized, curated by Messy Project Space and Mary Pansanga. Projectors screened videos on opposite walls. On one side was Kornkrit Jianpinidnan's The Vehicle is Onward ..., capturing various scenes of Bangkok at night, mainly along the Skytrain line. Recognizable places that seem ok on first glance look pretty trashy on closer inspection. On the opposite wall Bjorn Kammerer's Gyre played. This is a loop of a rotating cabin (a cabin in the woods, perhaps?) and it provided a flickering counterpoint to the urban scenes of the Thai director's short film.

In the main auditorium, they actually showed a movie – a short film detailing the efforts of the Gob Squad, a group of UK and German artists who recreated death scenes from such famous movies as Midnight Cowboy and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan Using split screens, the short film Live Long and Prosper showed the Gob Squad scene alongside the original. They are all done in public places, such as train stations, shopping malls, a laundramat or public transport. So instead of the engine room of the Enterprise, the Gob Squad's Kirk and Spock say their farewells through the front window of a department store, while stand-ins for Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight re-enact Rizzo's passing on a canal boat instead of a Florida-bound bus.

Queer performance artist Dickie Beau performed the finale. With clown white pantomime face make-up,  tight black outfit and long hair pulled back by a hair band, Dickie lip-synched a telephone conversation by a horny housewife to her husband. It was likely the most explicit language uttered in the auditorium of the Scala.

Then there was a special treat, an encore by filmmaker Richard DeDomenici, who set up a production office in one of the dressing rooms and in just three days managed to make a shot-for-shot remake of six minutes of GTH's 2009 hit romantic comedy Bangkok Traffic Love Story (รถไฟฟ้า มาหานะเธ), with the director himself taking the role of the winsome leading lady Cris Horwang. It was projected in a split screen, with original above DeDomenici's version, and the attention to detail was amazing, with the bearded filmmaker coming as close as he could to replicate Cris' wardrobe. Exact locations were used, as Cris' character tracks her crush-object along the Skytrain route. Only one scene from the sequence was missing, when Cris was moping over bubble tea in some tea shop. They couldn't find the tea shop or maybe it's no longer there, and rather than use another tea shop, they just left that scene blank while the real scene played in the frame above.

I'd imagine studio GTH would take a dim view of the project, fair use or not, but probably Cris and other participants in Bangkok Traffic Love Story would be amused by the heartfelt tribute paid to them by the "world's most unconvincing ladyboy."

Action Hero

Apichatpong, sex and smashing watermelons at HAF 2013

A who's who of Thai indie filmmakers will take part in this year's Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul will be at the project market with Cemetery of Kings, "which follows a lonely middle-aged housewife and a soldier with a sleeping sickness".

Aditya Assarat, Sivaroj Kongsakul and Pramote Sangsorn combine for the three-segment sex omnibus Nude Project

And Anocha Suwichakornpong collaborates with Bosnian visual artist Sejla Kameric on ForeverAwhile, "composed of reconstructed scenes inspired by the fragments of their memories and lives".

Cemetery of Kings will be the first full-length feature from Apichatpong since his Cannes Palme d'Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. He'll again be working with his Uncle Boonmee producers Simon Field and Keith Griffiths and his long-time actress Jenjira Widner, whose character is based on her recent real-life marriage to a retired German soldier. Here's the project synopsis from the HAF website:

In a small town in Thailand, 27 soldiers come down with a strange  case of sleeping sickness. An abandoned elementary school is converted to accommodate them. Jenjira Widner, a middle-age Thai lady who is married to  Frank, a retired soldier from the US, volunteers to tend to the sleeping soldiers.  She takes special interest in Itta who has no visiting relatives.

At the public library, Jenjira meets two phantoms who tell her about a buried cemetery of kings underneath the school/hospital. Jenjira is alarmed and feels more protective towards Itta. At the same time, the young soldier makes her heart flutter. Frank, her husband, becomes suspicious.

Jenjira’s fear and confusion trigger a strange dream that she shares with Itta, a  dream that involves a large unidentified creature on the Mekong River’s shore. Its  carcass leads Jenjira to Itta’s imaginary girlfriend, Phon, who revitalizes her with  the power of poems, remembering, and touching. At the shore, Jenjira fulfils her  fantasy of having a younger man begging for her love. Not far away, the dead animal is cut up. Its belly is full of marigold flowers in various stages of decay.

Check out the project synopsis from the HAF website for a detailed director's statement, in which he explains his inspiration comes from the "blanketing" influence of the military and the monarchy.

The omnibus Nude Project has Pramote, Aditya and Sivaroj each directing a segment based on a single theme: sex. "The filmmakers explore the nature of sexual desire and sexuality in different social contexts in Thai society," says the project statement, which gives detailed synopsis for each segment and further explanations from the directors, who take their inspirations from repressed and censored societal notions about sex and how parents set examples for sexual behavior.

Anocha collaborates with Sejla, a visual artist she met in Copenhagen. Their project, ForeverAwhile "will comprise a series of fragments, with each fragment’s narrative seemingly disconnected to one another. Some fragments will be short, lasting under a minute in duration, while some will be much longer. Some fragments will also be repeated, sometimes (but not always) with a slight variation."

Watermelons falling off the back of a truck and smashing on the road, footprints in the snow, hands setting a table and silent record player are among the images. The project, which aims to be a 60-minute film/visual art crossover, is produced by Copenhagen's DOX:LAB, the Center for Contemporary Arts, Sarajevo and Anocha's own Electric Eel Films. Read the project PDF for lots more details.

The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) runs from March 18 to 20 as part of the Entertainment Expo Hong Kong.

(Via Film Business Asia, The Hollywood Reporter)

Tony Jaa – performance artist, wall tagger

In the midst of preparations for Tom-Yum-Goong 2, still in production, with prominent guest stars being added, and still due for release sometime next year, the post-meltdown, post-monkhood, now-married-family-man martial-arts star Tony Jaa recently took time away from the movie shoot to put on a live performance at the opening of an exhibition of street art inspired by him.

“Pride of the Nation #1 Tony Jaa” at Bangkok's Artery Postmodern Gallery features various interpretations of the Ong-Bak star, from his fierce side, as represented in a Hulk-like green-hued painting, to his gentler side, as symbolized by a little boy in a pink bunny costume, his arms clutched around the trunk of an elephant.

Here's more, from The Nation's Soopsip column yesterday:

“I’m into martial arts, so I get my inspiration from watching Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li,” he said at the opening of an exhibition of art that he in turn inspired.

Jaa put on a show of his own while musicians played and graffiti makers did their thing.

In another corner, Patcharapon “Alex Face” Tangruen explained that Jaa’s affection for animals led him to draw the actor as a cute boy with an elephant. “I noticed his soft side during our workshop.”

Cecê Nobre from Brazil emphasised Jaa’s eyes in a portrait of bravery and determination. “He doesn’t need to flex the muscles to show his courage.”

Good stuff, but Jaa believes everyone can succeed in whatever they do. “You’ve just got to have belief in your work.”

Read on at Soopsip for more news of another film in the works, a biopic of the Myanmar fortuneteller "ET", planned by Kantana's Nirattisai Kaljaruek.

You can see more of Tony Jaa in a video from Thai PBS, embedded below.

Tom-Yum-Goong 2 is now set for a Thai release in May 2013. Head over to Twitch for more discussion about that.

Apichatpong-a-rama: Cactus River flows online

Cannes Golden Palm winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul has a new film out, and you won't have to trek to a film festival, arthouse cinema or art gallery to see it – it's online.

Cactus River (Khong Lang Nam) debuted over the weekend on the newly launched Walker Channel of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, which commissioned the short film by Apichatpong.

Here's more about it from the Walker Art Center website:

With Cactus River, the work’s title provides the sense of mystery that we have come to know through all of Weerasethakul’s work: a desert plant with the name of a waterway. It doesn’t make geographic sense, but conjures an image of what will happen to the Mekong if anticipated dams are built — making a veritable cactus-filled river. But this is more than a film about last year’s floods in Thailand and the threat of drought. In describing Cactus River, Weerasethkul tells the story of how actress Jenjira Pongpas changed her name to Nach, which means water. She has acted in his films since 2009, including Syndromes and a Century and Uncle Boonmee, both of which screened at the Walker in 2011. Convinced that her new name will bring good luck, Nach soon meets and marries Frank, a retired soldier from the small US town of Cuba, New Mexico. Cactus River opens with a scene of Nach and her husband in their new home on the Mekong River as they go about their daily life. She is cooking or knitting baby socks for sale while he gardens and watches a Thai television program with the sound turned off. We see the wind off the nearby river and the flowing of two waters, Nach and Mekong.

Cactus River is Weerasethakul’s diary of his visit with the couple. He explains, “The flow of the two rivers — Nach and the Mekong — activates my memories of the place where I shot several films. Over many years, this woman whose name was once Jenjira has introduced me to this river, her life, its history, and to her belief about its imminent future. She is certain that soon there will be no water in the river due to the upstream constructions of dams in China and Laos. I noticed, too, that Jenjira was no more.

Shot in black and white, much of it is in fast motion – though there is a spectacular slow-mo skateboard stunt. The video, available on YouTube, is embedded below.

Cactus River appears to be another element from Apichatpong's project about "water, specifically the Mekong". It also closely follows the low-fi, fragmented aesthetics of his previous work, Ashes, which was shot with the hand-cranked Lomo Kino camera and also debuted online.

Meanwhile, Apichatpong's latest feature, Mekong Hotel, is continuing to make the rounds at film festivals. It'll screen at the Walker later this month. Rumor is Mekong Hotel will appear soon in Bangkok, but details are yet to be confirmed.



(Via Mubi Notebook)