Kino goes to Wonderful Town

Aditya Assarat's Wonderful Town has been picked up for US distribution by Kino International, in a deal reported by Variety.

Wonderful Town, a romantic drama set in post-tsunami Phuket, was a winner of the Tiger Award at the recent International Film Festival Rotterdam.

It also won the New Currents prize at the Pusan International Film Festival last year. The film was screened at the recent Berlin International Film Festival, in the Forum program, and Director Aditya sat on the NETPAC jury at Berlin.

I've still not heard any word about when or where Wonderful Town might screen in Thailand.

The film was well received by critics in Berlin. One of them, Daniel Kasman, writing in The Auteurs Notebook, called it a great debut film, but was searching for something deeper. He writes:

Each shot is rendered with skill and consideration, has a light loveliness to it, but never seems fully earned, the expression said and said well, but not believed, not reaching past the surface of the characters. There is little richness beyond this lovely surface, but, at least until the awkwardly divergent ending, Assarat’s film stands beautifully, movingly on its own, and points towards greatness to come.

Sales agent Memento International has been selling Wonderful Town to many territories. It will release the film in French cinemas on May 7. Rights have also been sold to Soda in the U.K., Aztek in Australia, Trigon in Switzerland Stadtkino in Austria, Rosebud in Greece and Alliance in India. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Norway and Belgium-Luxembourg are also on the hook.

Wonderful Town is the fifth Thai film in the Kino International catalog. The arthouse distributor has published Region 1 DVDs of Nonzee Nimibutr's ghost classic Nang Nak and his erotic drama Jan Dara, as well as the musical historical drama The Overture, and, standing out like a sore thumb, the shoot 'em up drama, Hit Man File.

(Via Variety)