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June 28, 2005
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.
June 28, 2005 at 10:20 AM in News | Permalink
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Comments
Thanks for the link. I have high hopes for Namprix, as well as Citizen Dog's prospects in the States. Actually, I'd hoped that Dog would've been picked up by some major fests already, but these things take time, I guess.
It's all up to EuropaCorp, which hopefully will do the film justice in festival and arthouse releases and eventually a high-quality DVD release, hopefully with Chuck Stephens' and Kong Rithdee's excellent English subtitles.
Posted by: wisekwai | Jun 28, 2005 6:29:39 PM
I read Nam Prix was being made for three mil ... that counts as a huge budget in Thailand? Damn ... for that price you'd think all the major studios would be setting up shop there ...
But a hearty AMEN to everything you said here Grady ...
Posted by: Todd | Jun 29, 2005 10:22:42 AM
Europa has really been committed to Thai film and I hope it pays off for them. But so far, things don't look great, what with TOM YUM GOONG going to another company after they lavished so much care and affection on Tony Jaa's career and with the fate of CITIZEN DOG still hanging out in the wind.
But they're in it for the long haul so I've got high hopes for NAMPRIX.
Posted by: Grady Hendrix | Jun 30, 2005 11:21:32 AM