Reincarnate, Slice selected for NETPAC competition at Rotterdam

Two edgy Thai films -- Thunska Pansittivorakul's censor-baiting experimental romantic thriller Reincarnate and Kongkiat Komesiri's gritty crime thriller Slice (Cheun) -- are in consideration for the NETPAC Award at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. The award is given by a panel of Asian filmmakers and film experts from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.

Here's the competition line-up:

• To Walk Beside You, Ishii Yuya, Japan
• Ante, Adolfo Alix Jr, Philippines
• Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song, John Torres, Philippines
• Stone is the Earth, Mes de Guzman, Philippines
• Reincarnate, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Thailand
• Slice Kongkiat Khomsiri, Thailand
• elbowroom, Ham Kyoung-Rock, South Korea
• The Annunciation, Hsu Ronin, China
• Moscow, Whang Cheol-mean, South Korea
• Wheat Harvest, Xu Tong, China
• True Noon, Nosir Saidov, Tajikistan
• Third Person Singular, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Bangladesh
• Tale from Kars, Özcan Alper & Zehra Derya Koç & Ülkü Oktay & Ahu Öztürk & Ömer Emre Akay, Turkey

Programmers have also suggested that the NETPAC panel consider two more films from the festival's Forget Africa Project: Memories of a Burning Tree by Sherman Ong from Singapore and Unreal Forest by Thailand's Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Thunska's Reincarnate as well as Jakrawal's Unreal Forest are making their world premieres in Rotterdam. The main VPRO Tiger Awards competition has the European premiere of Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History. I had an earlier look at the Thai films in the festival's line-up.

IFFR 2010 started yesterday and runs until February 7.