WISIT SASANATIENG: THIRD TIME LUCKY?

Wisit Sasanatieng is one of the world's most visually-inventive directors, but North American audiences wouldn't know it. His first movie, 2000's TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER, has vanished into the Miramax vaults and indications show that it may never emerge. His second film, 2004's CITIZEN DOG, was picked up by Luc Besson's Europa Corp., and while they've announced they will be distributing it to North American film festivals, nothing has been finalized. Given the current state of Thai film in the US, and the word-of-mouth on the movie, it would seem that it will be viewed by a pretty small audience over here, if at all.

But Europa has signed on as co-producer of Wisit Sasanatieng's third movie, a foodie fantasia called Namprix. The movie was conceived in 2002, but shelved because, according to Sasanatieng, "it needed a huge budget." Fortunately, despite his niche appeal thus far, he's been able to come up with said "huge budget" and production is underway.

The English-speaking world waits with bated breath, fingers crossed that this time we'll finally get to see one of Sasanatieng's movies before it goes cold.