THAILAND MADNESS IS BACK!

Maybe one reason the Thai film industry has seen a slump in quality is that everyone's too busy fighting behind the scenes to actually focus on making good movies.

The latest kerfluffle?

The Federation of National Film Assn. of Thailand announced INVISIBLE WAVES as Thailand's Oscar entry for "Best Foreign Film" but then, suddenly, they decided that they'd enter AHIMSA...STOP TO RUN instead. Which came out in 2005.

The FNFA said that they never announced that INVISIBLE WAVES was their submission at all.

"We didn't replace INVISIBLE WAVES with AHIMSA, " a spokesman for the federation said. "Because of a very short lead time in transporting the print to the U.S., we were concerned that we would miss the deadline and decided to submit another film to the Oscar committee instead."

This was a bit of a shocker for Palm Pictures, which owns the US rights to INVISIBLE WAVES and was already planning a marketing campaign for the movie's theatrical release in early 2007 based around its nomination. Also surprised was Five Star Entertainment, INVISIBLE WAVES' producers.

"As soon as the federation made it known to us that the film would represent Thailand, we immediately arranged the transport of the print through (sales agent) Fortissimo Films," said Five Star Prods. production executive Aphiradee "Amy" Iamphungphorn. "If the federation hadn't announced in the first place that INVISIBLE WAVES would be the nominee, we wouldn't be so upset."

Now, Fortissimo films is getting in on the act. They're the international sales agent for INVISIBLE WAVES and their president, Michael Werner, has written a letter to FNFA stating that the submission of AHIMSA will be, "embarrassing to the name, reputation and image of Thailand."

FNFA has never been a fan of INVISIBLE WAVES, an international co-production, and earlier this year they had said that it wasn't truly a Thai film at all and shouldn't be allowed to open the Bangkok International Film Festival.

Read all of Kong Rithdee's article (from which the above quotes are snagged) which dissects the issue in delicious detail. Expect further developments.