Chukiat Sakweerakul's The Love of Siam will be featured at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, which runs from March 12 to 22. It's scheduled for March 14 at the Castro and March 22 at Camera Cinemas.
Here's the festival synopsis:
A groundbreaking teen love story, The Love of Siam is a moving gay romance that took Thailand by storm. Mew and Tong are childhood neighbors and become good friends after Tong protects Mew from bullies. Tragedy strikes when Tong's sister disappears, however, and soon Tong's grief-stricken family moves away. Years later, the two boys are reunited in Siam Square, a trendy teenage hangout in Bangkok, where Mew often performs with a now-popular boy band. Rekindling their affections after all these years, the two must decide if their feelings for one another are as friends, or something more. When they discover that Mew's manager looks exactly like Tong's long-lost sister, a different kind of decision is made, one that may create other problems, or a novel solution to Tong's father's grief.
Dealing with both the complexities of family life and teen love, The Love of Siam pushes cultural boundaries further by dealing with sexuality in an honest manner rarely seen in Thai commercial film. Despite its controversial subject matter, it managed to win over both audiences and critics at home, winning all major awards and achieving huge box-office success. It also ignited websites, message boards and a slew of online fan fiction that continued the story of Tong and Mew. Chosen to represent Thailand at the 2009 Academy Awards [but not nominated], The Love of Siam is a well-crafted, affecting drama that captures the vibrancy of Thai pop culture and its modern capitol.
It's the 158-minute commercial cut. Good to see this movie still having legs on the festival circuit, two years on.
Meanwhile, the English-subtitled DVD, including the three-hour director's cut, is available from Taiwan.
(Via Twitch, The Evening Class, film-415)
SFIAAFF link above is for the 2008 festival.
ReplyDeleteCorrect link for 2009 is:
http://festival.asianamericanmedia.org/2009/
Thanks Dr. Stan! I've fixed that link.
ReplyDeletejust watched this. Its a damn fine film
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteI've watched this film over 9 times already and it still makes me cry!
The beauty of the film is that it discusses all forms of love --- romantic, filial and familial--- without being too technical about it. The story is very, very gripping and even towards the end of the film you still want more!
I also love how it's very true to the culture it came from. It never pretended not to be Thai.
This, I guess, can be why it's called Love of Siam!
I can definitely see why it represented Thailand at the Academy Awards!
Great job Chookiat Sakveerakul, Witwisit Hiranyawongkul, Mario Maurer and the other cast and crew of the film!