Ploy, Wonderful Town, Opapatika in Deauville

The Deauville Asian Film Festival runs from March 12 to 16, and it features two Thai films in its main features competition: Aditya Assarat's now-ubiquitious Wonderful Town (seems like it is playing everywhere but Thailand) and Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Ploy (when's the uncensored, English-friendly version coming to DVD?).

A third film, the karmic action drama Opapatika, is featured in the Asia Action Competition.

The three Thai films join a program that includes tributes to Korean director Im Kwon-taek, Chinese director Jia Zhangke, actor Jiang Wen, who is described by festival director Bruno Barde as "the Chinese Marlon Brando", Japanese actor Koji Yakusho, and Japanese film-score composer Joe Hisaishi.

Here is the list feature competition films:

• Beautiful, directed by Juhn Jai hong, South Korea
• Exodus, directed by Pang Ho-Cheung, Hong Kong
• Flower in the Pocket, directed by Liew Seng Tat, Malaysia
• Fujian Blue, directed by Robin Weng, China
• Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers, directed by Daihachi Yoshida, Japan
• Keeping Watch, directed by Fen Fen Cheng, Taiwan
• Ploy, directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Thailand
• Solos, directed by Kan Lume & Loo Zihan, Singapore
• The Red Awn, directed by Cai Shangjun, China
• With A Girl of Black Soil, directed by Jeon Soo-il, South Korea
• Wonderful Town, directed by Aditya Assarat, Thailand

And the Asia Action competitors:

• Black Belt, directed by Nagasaki Shunichi, Japan
• Coq De Combat, directed by Soi Cheang, Hong Kong
• Crowns Zero, directed by Takashi Miike, Japan
• Heros De Guerre, directed by Feng Xiaogang, China
• Opapatika, directed by Thanakorn Pongsuwan, Thailand

More information:

• Festival website
• Full house for Thai films in Hong Kong
• Wonderful Town at New York's New Directors/New Films
• Kino goes to Wonderful Town
  
• Wonderful Town, Flower in the Pocket share honors again in Rotterdam
• Berlin is Wonderful Town
  

(Via Hong Kong Standard/AFP, ThaiCinema.org)