Jeonju Digital Project films available on DVD

The Jeonju Digital Project films from 2000 to 2008 are available on DVD from the Jeonju International Film Festival.

Each year, the project has commissioned three directors to make short films that are premiered in the festival. Participating directors have included Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who made Wordly Desires in 2005 and Pen-ek Ratanaruang who made Twelve Twenty in 2006.

This DVD set marks the first time that all the films from the first nine years of the project have been made available for home viewing as they were originally packaged for the festival. Previously, the only way to see them would be to go to the Jeonju festival, possibly catch them at another festival, or perhaps see them broken up for retrospectives or special screenings.

A few of the films have made their way to DVD previously. Apichatpong's Worldly Desires, for example, is offered as an extra on the Syndromes and a Century DVD put out by BFI in the U.K.

But I'd pretty well given up ever seeing Pen-ek Ratanruang's Twelve Twenty. It was shown at the 10th Thai Short Film & Video Festival, but I was unable to see it then.

There's a slight catch to all this. The nine-DVD box set is US$100. But that includes shipping by DHL to anywhere in the world. The DVDs can only be ordered from the festival. Payment is by wire transfer only. Details can be found on the purchase application page. Orders are filled at the end of each month.

I have not yet ordered mine, but Jon Pais received his set and posted a review of the first two discs at Twitch.

Update: Part 2 of Pais' reviews is up at Twitch. He did not care for Worldly Desires, not one bit.