Insects director goes commercial with Hak Na Sarakham

Transvestite indie filmmaker Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, director of the banned social drama Insects in the Backyard, goes commercial with her latest effort, Hak Na Sarakham (ฮักนะ 'สารคาม).

Produced by Sahamongkol Film International, it's a sunny comedy about the love lives of youngsters in Maha Sarakham, a predominantly rural province in the culturally distinct region of Thailand's northeast known as Isaan. The result is a countryside ode that might perhaps recall the classic 1970 romance Monrak Lukthung.

Tanwarin talked a bit about the movie in an interview with BK magazine:

"My identity won’t change if I do a big studio movie, like Hak Na Sarakham. I will do the movie that both the studio and I want. I won’t take their money and just what do I want, like some directors. That’s disgusting. I can do what I like in my self-funded movies."

The Bangkok Post's Kong Rithdee also talked to Tanwarin and has an article today that places Hak Na Sarakham the canon of Isaan-dialect cinema that also includes the still-shoing Panya Reanu as well as older movies like Yam Yasothon, Dynamite Warrior and the classic Luk Isaan (Son of the Northeast).

Impish comedienne "Tukky" Sudarat Butrprom stars, playing the upperclassman mentor to some of the schoolkids who in reality are perhaps nearly half her age.

Check the trailer, embedded below. Hak Na Sarakham is in Thai cinemas on Thursday.