Thursday, January 11, 2007

ThaiMovie ::: 10 Thai Films celebrate 10th Pusan Film Festival



ThaiMovie ::: 10 Thai Films celebrate 10th Pusan Film Festival

Coincidentally or not, Pusan International Film Festival, the best film festival in Asia, will celebrate its 10th anniversary with the selection of 10 Thai films, four of which are international premieres. The premiered lists include three mainstream film The Tin Mine, Midnight My Love, and My Space. But it will be the last title Innocence that will hit local headlines in the next following days. The film is made on an independent basis, and directed by former Miss Thailand Ariya Chumsai, and her co-director Nisa Kongsri.Shot in digital, Innocence tells the story of hilltribe children in a boarding school in the Northern Thailand, who are taken by the school's principal to see the water's end as a way to fulfil their dreams. Ariya's filmmaking interest was first shown out when her project, also co-worked by her co-director Nisa, was selected as one of twenty films in the PPP funds in 2003 where the directors can discuss with potential investors and buyers. Innocence will be

screened in the wellknown independent section Wide Angle, together with another independent project 3 Friends by Aditya Assarat, Mingmongkol Sonakul, and Phumin Chinaradee. No Thai films has entered the New Current category this year, the festival's only competition section dedicated to the first and second works of new directors, though all of them can fit into the criteria. Citizen Dog will show its Asian
premiere outside Thailand in A Window of Asian Cinema section, including Jira Maligool's The Tin Mine, and Kongdej Jaturanrassame's Midnight My Love. My Space, a film that was coincidentally expanded from a student thesis work, has been selected in the APEC Special program. It will introduce 20 films from APEC nations that are programmed under the theme of 'conversation'; it is to acknowledge the importance of the Summit to be held in Busan in November and to help understand the cultural diversity.Last but not least, four old Thai films by Rattana Pestonj, the director who died of his arts, are programmed in a very interesting special section called 'Re-mapping of Asian Auteur Cinema.' The program intends to Asia's leading cineastes whose works have been often neglected on the international scope but hailed by the home ground audiences. All of Pestonji's existing copies Sugar Is Not Sweet (1965), Black Silk (1961), Country Hotel (1957) and Dark Heaven (1958) will show to foreign audiences for the second time, after their premieres in Singapore in 2002. Black Silk was one of the earlier Thai films that was selected into the competition at Berlin International Film Festival in 1961. More information: http://www.piff.org

By ::: Anchalee Chaiworaporn

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