Haha, I knew this was gonna be auto-biographical and the poster (on the site) does actually make it look like a comedy, of sorts.
A Thai film in Cannes?
Directed by a Brit, but unmistakably Thai in almost every other regard, 'Soi Cowboy' will feature at the world's most exclusive film festival
KONG RITHDEE
Last year there were a record three Thai films at the Cannes Film Festival. Usually one is a reason enough for our nation to cheer. And when Cannes unveiled its line-up last week for the upcoming festival on May 14, no works by Siamese directors appeared on the elite list. But look closely: there's one title that bears a strong Thai DNA - literally impregnated with thick Thai blood - and once again images from this land will be splashed across the screens at the world's most revered cinefest.
The film is called Soi Cowboy, and has been picked into the Un Certain Regard section of the 61st Festival de Cannes. Set in Bangkok and a small village in Chaiyaphum, the movie was directed by Thomas Clay, a British filmmaker who's married to a Thai woman from the Northeast, and largely tells the semi-autobiographical story of a farang who hooks up with a Soi Cowboy bargirl who later gets pregnant with his child.
Clay shot Soi Cowboy with a Thai crew in Bangkok last October; the cinematographer is Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who has shot Apichatpong Weerasethakul's mesmerising movies. Clay is now going through the final phase of post-production in Italy.
Finance came from both the UK and Thailand, through a production outfit called De Warrenne Pictures, which has produced other farang-directed Thai films such as Butterfly Man, Nak and The Elephant King.
"It is pretty much a Thai movie, though the director is British," says Tom Waller of De Warrenne Pictures. "The whole film was shot here. It's in English and Thai - and in the second half, in a strong Isan dialect - and the cast and crew, except the main guy, are Thai."
Soi Cowboy will be screened at Cannes. The cross-pollination of influences underlines the elusive identity of modern movies.
On the Cannes-version poster, a brief synopsis conjures both a familiar sight around Soi Cowboy and Nana, yet also evokes an intriguing back story of many bargirls: "In Bangkok, a corpulent European man and a young, pregnant Thai woman live together in near silence. His large body stands out in marked contrast to her tiny frame... She likes him, but sleeping with him is a duty. Out in the countryside, her brother, a teenage mafia enforcer, is employed to deliver their older brother's head."
De Warrenne Pictures allowed the Bangkok Post to sneak a peek at the unofficial Thai-version poster, as re-printed on this page.
"We want to release the film in Thailand," said Mr Waller. "But right now we'll have to wait and see the reaction from Cannes."
Clay's previous film, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael, played at the sidebar Critics' Week in Cannes in 2005. The film is set in a small English town where a group of disaffected teenagers commit an atrocious crime in a prolonged burst of violence in the final act, earning the movie a fair dose of controversy.
Soi Cowboy's cross-pollination of influences - culturally and financially - underlines the elusive identity of modern movies. Last year, one of the "Thai" films in Cannes was Pleasure Factory, which was directed by Ekachai Uakrongtham, a Thai, but set in the hothouse red-light district of Singapore and largely funded by Singaporean companies. Another film, Ploy, was directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang while the money came from both a Thai studio and an Amsterdam/Hong Kong distributor. Meanwhile, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's short, a documentary about an ash-scattering ceremony on the Mekong called Luminous People, which played at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight section in 2007, was commissioned by a Portuguese producer.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Realtime/02M ... eal004.php