Phuket Film Festival 2010: Capsule reviews part 2

Bitter/Sweet (ข้ามฟ้า หาสูตรรัก, Kam Fah Ha Sut Rak), Jeff Hare, 2009 – After more than a year of hype and making the rounds of film festivals, and even winning awards here and there, this coffee-flavored Thai-Hollywood romance finally comes home. The Phuket Film Festival had a star-studded Thai premiere for it on Friday at Phuket Town's Coliseum Cineplex, and a cozy reception afterward at The Vijitt Resort. It opens in a wide release in Thailand this week. But what an embarrassment. Stilted, awkward dialogue and laughable contrivances make this movie more bitter than sweet. Kip Pardue stars as a young, uptight executive for a coffee company, sent by his boss (a clearly bemused James Brolin) to Thailand. On a buying trip to the robusta-growing region of picturesque Krabi, the man makes contact with a fiery public-relations executive, played by Mamee Nakprisit. Her parents are the growers in the region. She hates the guy at first sight, but then falls in love with him. None of it makes sense. What would she see in a cold, anal-retentive jerk who won't take his shoes off because "they're Italian"? And he's already engaged. And why would he be attracted to a woman with such obvious emotional issues, whose bitchiness is just a mask for her teary-eyed insecurities? Along for the ride are Spencer Garrett as a drunken Austrian expat – a comic-relief wingman for Pardue's character – and Kalorin Supaluck Neemayothin as the drunk's long-suffering girlfriend. Pakkaramia Potranan is Mamee's even-bitchier sister with a boxer boyfriend (Akara Amarttayakul, putting on a brave face and diving right in). Mr. Muay Thai is in for a shock late in the film. Veteran actors Viyada Umarin and Sompob Benjathikul are obligingly used as the mom-and-pop coffee farmers. Singer Tata Young appears briefly, so her name and face can be used on the posters. A Thai-pop soundtrack keeps things bouncing along, even when they don't need to be. Coffee lovers will perk up at the lovingly photographed bushes and beans. Interestingly, the producer and co-writer of Bitter/Sweet, Urs T. Bruner, also runs the Bon Cafe coffee company in Thailand. The coffee's not bad, but this movie is pretty undrinkable stuff. (2/5)


Bẫy Rồng (Clash), Le Thanh Son, 2009 – This is the kind of serious movie I wish Thai martial-arts heroine Jija Yanin had made instead of the silly nonsense that was Raging Phoenix. Pop singer "Veronica" Ngo Thanh Van gives an eye-popping performance as the leader of a band of thieves tasked to steal a laptop by the shadowy Black Dragon. Performing all her own hard-hitting stunts, Ngo has clearly been training diligently in order to considerably step up her game since her turn as the plucky romantic interest in 2007's The Rebel, the Vietnamese historical martial-arts drama that starred Johnny Tri Nguyen. The same team is at work on Clash, a crime thriller set in modern Ho Chi Minh City. Johnny is among the criminals who Ngo, codenamed Phoenix, recruits. Like a blend of Reservoir Dogs and Fight Club, there are rules, among them no real names. One comic-relief guy complains about his name being Ox when others have handles like Snake, Tiger and Hawk. He might as well have been named Mr. Pink. But the tough-as-nails Phoenix puts him in his place. The tight plot has a steamy relationship between real-life partners Ngo and Johnny forming. And the characters have their own motivations, ultimately leading to the clash, which involves lots of gunplay and intense close-quarters hand-to-hand fighting. Director Le Thanh Son brought the stunning 35mm print to screen at the festival himself, and enthusiastically took part in festival activities, at one point presenting a garland to English director Paul Hills and praising him for his film Do Elephants Pray?. (4/5)


Who Killed Chea Vichea?, Bradley Cox, 2009 – This 50-minute documentary's title asks a question it doesn't answer. It does clearly sum up that the two men, Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, who were convicted of the murder of labor activist Chea Vichea, didn't do it. Dozens of witnesses corroborate that the man the police say pulled the trigger was nowhere near the newsstand in Phnom Penh's Wat Langka neighborhood on Chinese New Year's day, January 22, 2004, when Chea was gunned down. The news vendor, since relocated to another country, says the shooter wasn't the man who was in the police sketch. Through repeated use of their mugshots, fingers are pointed at top police officials, cronies of self-proclaimed strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose picture is also in the photo array. Those men, among them former national police chief Hok Lundy, are either dead or in prison. All the viewer needs is the big fat finger of a police detective to tap on Hun Sen's smiling visage to say, yeah, he's the one who did it. The documentary, the work of a filmmaker who was close to Vichea, is a depressing and damning portrait of Cambodia, a country that despite decades of international aid, cannot break free of the rule of lawless thuggery that has dominated the so-called democracy since the end of the genocidal Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. The voices of dissent are stifled by intimidation. Their absence is even more incriminating. And to prove that point, the Cambodian government has banned Who Killed Chea Vichea? and says it intends to stop screenings of the film “wherever they are held". They missed one during the Phuket Film Festival, which had canceled the documentary, not because of intimidation but for a lack of money to hire the equipment to show it. But thanks to the efforts taken by English director Paul Hills, who hired a projector to show his film Do Elephants Pray?, Who Killed Chea Vichea? was shown and hopefully it will be shown many more times in many more places until its message is heard and its question answered definitively. (5/5)

Mundane History in Paris competition; High Society, Eternity in project screenings

Mundane History (Jao Nok Krajok) is in the competition at the Paris Cinema International Film Festival.

Anocha Suwichakornpong's non-linear family-and-social drama just won the Transilvania Trophy at the Transilvania International Film Festival, and is next headed for the Munich Film Festival, where it's playing in the Focus on the Far East alongside Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

Paris Cinema also has the Paris Project, which will host a screening of Aditya Assarat’s High Society, which came from a previous edition of the Paris Project. The drama starring Ananda Everingham, Cerise Leang and Sajee Apiwong is in post-production. Aditya's semi-autobiographical drama is about a Thai man who studies overseas and his difficulties connecting in relationships with two women.

The project will also have a post-production screening of "films discovered this year", among them Eternity by Sivaroj Kongsakul, produced by Aditya and Pop Pictures. The drama tracks a man through "three stages of being – as a ghost wandering through his childhood home, as a young man falling in love with his future wife, and as an absence in the life of his surviving family in the days following his death."

The Paris Cinema International Film Festival runs from July 3 to 13.

(Via Film Business Asia)

Apichatpong-a-rama: Party on Sunday to celebrate Uncle Boonmee's Palme d'Or

Celebrating the Palme d’Or win at the Cannes Film Festival by "Joei" Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai Film Archive, Thai Film Foundation and a host of other sponsors have put together a bash for the recently returned filmmaker on Sunday afternoon at the Archive's Sri Salaya Theatre in Nakhon Pathom.

The “San Dee Jai” party, starting at around 4 on Sunday, follows yesterday's official congratulatory meeting with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva at the Parliament House and a private party hosted by rench Ambassador Gildas le Lidec on Saturday.

Don’t expect to see the award-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives to be screened at the party. Who knows when we’ll get to see it here in Thailand.

But there still will be plenty of fun. They'll show the Uncle Boonmee trailer and video clips from Cannes.

The short, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, which is part the same Primitive art project as the feature, will be shown. There will congratulatory speeches, short films by associated filmmakers and friends, and the band Penguin Villa will play.

And Joei will give a press conference.

Long-time Kick the Machine stock-company players, actress "Pa Jane" Jenjira Jansuda and actor "Tong" Sakda Kaewbuadee, will put their hand and footprints in the cement outside the cinema. They’ve collaborated with Joei on many features, shorts and installations. Jenjira first appeared in Blissfully Yours (2002), while Sakda was the co-lead in Tropical Malady (2004), and has appeared in several industry films as well.

I lobbied for Joei himself to make his impressions to no avail. The rule of Archive chief Khun Dome Sukwong is actors only, with Joei's brief appearance in the hair-raising action short Mobile Men apparently not counting.

Interestingly, the recently passed-away animator Payut Ngaokrachang was allowed to immortalize his impressions because his likeness had appeared in his first short, 1955's Haed Mahasajan (เหตุมหัศจรรย์)

Other sponsors and media partners of Sunday's shindig are the Jim Thompson Art Centre, James HW Thompson, the Thai Film Director Association, Extra Virgin, Bioscope, The Reading Room, The Nation and the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

Can't be there on Sunday? Feel all warm and fuzzy with this video interview by Apichatpong talking about his work and his power Phantoms of Nabua short.

Phuket Film Festival 2010: Who Killed Chea Vichea? lives on

Initially dumped from the schedule in a hasty shuffle in response to poor attendance earlier this week, the documentary Who Killed Chea Vichea? is back in the program of the Phuket Film Festival.

With heart and soul poured into it by director Bradley Cox over the course of five years, Who Killed Chea Vichea?, "a documentary about an untrue story", covers the 2004 slaying of a vocal Cambodian labor activist and the sham murder trial that followed.

Banned from screening in Cambodia, by all accounts I've come across, this is a gripping documentary. There's a trailer at YouTube, which I found pretty difficult to watch, just because the images and story are so powerful. It's embedded below.

Who Killed Chea Vichea? will play at 9.30 on Saturday night at the Green Man pub, in innkeepers Howard's and Nui's fabulous Egyptian-themed hall.

It's in a double bill with the indie English romantic-existential comedy Do Elephants Pray?, which will have director Paul Hills, writer-producer-star Johnnie Hurn and actor John Last in attendance.

The festival has had its ups and downs since reducing its schedule from 10 days to seven.

On Tuesday night, the festival reported that around 60 people turned out at Cape Yamu for the Meet the Director night with Darnell Martin of Cadillac Records.

And festival director Scott Rosenberg says around 10 people attended the Thai premiere of the Vietnamese actioner Bay Rong (Clash) with Johnny Nguyen and Veronica Ngo, and hung around to meet director Le Thanh Son.

But the Alternative Lifestyle Day on Wednesday was a bust, with the films and party cancelled. Ticketholders can use their tickets to get into any other film that's left.

Friday has a full lineup of the festival at the Coliseum Paradise Cineplex in Phuket Town, with the French films A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) at noon and the animated Princes et Princesses at 2.

The star-studded Thai premiere of Bitter/Sweet is on Friday night at 7 at the Coliseum Paradise followed by a reception at the festival's hospitality partner, The Vijitt Resort.

More movies on Saturday at the Coliseum are the Thai-Hollywood romance Bitter/Sweet at noon, Bollywood-Chinese martial-arts action in Chadni Chowk to China at 2, Bay Rong (Clash) at 5.30 and the sci-fi thriller Repo Men at 7.30.

The festival closes on Sunday night with the premiere of Yuthlert Sippapak's hitman drama Friday Killer at Stereolab nightclub on Surin Beach.

Review: Po Taek

• Directed by Petthai Wongkumlao
• Starring Pettai Wongkumlao, Thep Po-ngam
• Released in Thai cinemas on June 3, 2010; rated 15+
• Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

Petthai "Mum Jokmok" Wongkumlao pulls back the veil over Thai movie-industry magic for the self-deprecating comedy Po Taek (โป๊ะแตก), in which the major butt of jokes is his old mentor, veteran comedian, actor and director Thep Po-ngam.

Thep, who in real life has been having financial problems, appears in Mum's office at Bang Fai Productions – a shop where Mum holds all the job titles, from executive producer down to janitor. Thep's bowing and scraping, hoping to make an ambitious, meaningful, highly personal project that he's been wanting to do for a long time, but is immediately dismissed by Mum and instead roped into making an action comedy the studio has starting that very day.

Soon Thep finds himself standing next to a Brahmin priest going through the traditional prayer ceremony at the start of production, only this rite is accompanied by a marching band, hip gyrations and heads whacked with urinal bottles and serving trays.

There's shenanigans on the craft-service line as the slovenly caterer only uses his hands to dish up the food.

A husband-and-wife comedy team work out their real-life marriage problems onscreen, with the wife putting her foot down, on her husband's chest. The spousal bickering blows a lid when skantily clad young actress Cherry Supaporn comes to the set and has her cleavage rammed head-first by the husband comic, and then Mum, who wants to show him how to do it. This brings Mum's stern wife to the set for a fierce tongue lashing.


There's also weird tongue action going on in a bedroom scene involving Cherry, Teng and Nong.

Even the stuntmen don't escape the comic barbs, as a trio of amputee pyrotechnic experts show up and mistime their explosions.

In another scene, Thep wrecks the stunt car. He's bleeding from his bald dome, but Mum and everyone else is only concerned with whether the old car can be used again.

The jokes come fast and furious and had the audience in stitches for the first hour or so. By the last half hour, the jokes are more mean-spirited, the laughs are fewer and further between and the premise wears off as it becomes apparent this is simply a loose collection of satiric gags about movie-making and not much of a story.

I appreciated the smaller moments, like when Mum is just hanging out with his crew while there's downtime, and he asks anyone if they have something funny to talk about. I got the sense it was something real. It's insight into Mum's hands-on directing style, which has him jumping up from behind his monitor to actually show the actors what he wants, rather than try and explain it.


The all-star cast includes Mum's TV comedy co-horts Pongsak "Teng Terdterng" Pongsuwan, Choosak "Nong Chachacha" Iamsuk, Kom Chuanchuen, Note Chern-yim, Ping Lumprapleung, Apaporn Nakonsawan and "Tukky" Sudarat Butrprom.

A notable player is dreadlocked Thai-speaking Ghanian comedian Johnson Amidou, who's been featured in Thep's movies, among them the African adventure Duk Dum Dui. Johnson holds his own against the dimwits Teng and Nong, and eventually storms off the set after putting up with so much abuse.

When the time comes for Johnson's scene, it's the long-suffering Nong – who's complained about his small, ridiculous roles in The Bodyguard movies – to don not only blackface, but entire black, nearly naked body.

It's tasteless, politically incorrect humor, but that's what sells. Po Taek debuted at No. 1, according to Box Office Mojo, earning around 23 million baht and following on the heels of another smash-hit movie-making parody, Sam Yan, from rival studio Film R Us.

With that kind of money being banked, I'm sure that Mum and his producers at Work Point, Baa-Ram-Ewe and Sahamongkolfilm are already thinking of more ways to skewer their own industry.


Related posts:

• Mum and Thep together again in Po Taek

San Alai: Payut Ngaokrachang

The Thai Film Archive and the Thai Film Foundation will pay tribute on Saturday to the late pioneering animator Payut Ngaokrachang (ปยุต เงากระจ่าง), who died on May 27 at age 81.

Activities at the Sri Salaya Theatre in Nakhon Pathom include a screening of Payut's first animated short, 1955's Haed Mahasajan (เหตุมหัศจรรย์), about a traffic cop using Thai dance to direct cars. He then sees a woman's zipper come undone and the distraction results in a pile-up.

Payut's daughter, actress Nantana Ngaokrachang, will be there to make her hand-and-feet impressions in the cement outside the cinema. She's best known for her starring role in Cherd Songsri's 1977 classic romantic tragedy Plae Kao (The Old Scar). She appeared in around 14 other films in the 1970s and '80s, but has since then been living in the U.S.

Her father had made his impressions, including a funny drawing, at the Sri Salaya in 2008.

Payut directed Thailand's first animated feature, The Adventure of Sudsakorn, which was released in 1979. Damaging his eyesight in the near-singlehanded animation process, it was his only feature. His other shorts include an anti-communist propaganda piece for the U.S. Information Service with Hanuman the white monkey god fighting a red monkey, and he directed an educational short for girls called My Way in 1992 with funding from Japan. He also made TV commercials in collaboration with Thai film industry pioneer Ratana Pestonji.

The annual Thai Short Film & Video Festival's animation prize is the Payut Ngaokrachang Award, a silver medallion designed by Payut himself.

San Alai: Payut Ngaokrachang (In Memory of Payut Ngaokrachang) gets under way at 2.30 on Saturday. Poet Jiranan Pitpreecha will give a reading, there will be the movie screening and Nantana will make her impressions. It all runs until about 6.

The Film Archive is easily reachable from Bangkok's Victory Monument on air-con bus 515. It's about a one-hour ride and the Film Archive (หอ ภาพยนตร์(องค์การมหาชน), Hor Pappayon (Onggan Mahachon)), identified by the bright yellow Thai Film Museum, is near the end of the line on Phuttamonthon Soi 5 in Salaya. Call (02) 482 2013-5 or (02) 482 1087-8.

Apichatpong-a-rama: The filmmaker's back in Bangkok, Uncle Boonmee's in Sydney, headed to Munich

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is back in Thailand after a jaunt around Europe in which his new film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in France, he wowed the British media with his flaming soccer ball and taught students in Geneva.

He held interviews yesterday with the Thai press at the Sri Salaya Theatre at the Thai Film Archive in Nakhon Pathom.

The Nation forcibly dragged some guy out of his house at 8 o'clock in the morning, poured coffee, Daeng Bireley's and duck noodles down his gullet and made him interview Apichatpong. Somehow, thanks to the kind, patient and intelligent Joei, a story was written and actually printed in the newspaper the very next day. You can read it here. Here's a bit:

Already much lauded, Apichatpong has become a bona fide celebrity as the first Thai to win one of cinema's most prestigious awards. His ordinarily quiet, private life is now filled with talk about his movie, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Luang Boonmee Raluek Chat).

"It's hard," he admitted yesterday in this third grilling of the day. "I went to meet some big shot in France – I cannot say the name – and he said, 'Now you have more enemies!'

"When you come more into the public sphere, you're bound to have these people ... You have more people who love you and more people who hate you. It's put a little pressure on me because I really like my privacy, but I think my love for movies is more. So I'm okay with that."

He's pessimistic about releasing Uncle Boonmee in Thailand. So beyond possible festival screenings or some kind one-off event, the first Thai film to win the Palme d'Or probably won't be seen by the majority of the Thai public.

What would be really cool is if a Thai distributor would step forward and underwrite the costs of releasing the film, and shepherd it through the gauntlet of censorship and ratings. But that probably won't happen because the film won't make any money. "It's not for everyone," Apichatpong admits.

Anyway, Apichatpong wants to move on, and he's got some exciting things lined up.

He's been asked to make the one-minute trailer for this year's Vienna International Film Festival, following in the steps of James Benning and Jean-Luc Godard. It's expected to be ready in September.

He's doing a new art piece for the Sao Paulo Biennale, and he's still keen to work on the portrait of 86-year-old writer and Japan specialist Donald Richie. He's also writing a new feature, which might involve French, British and Thai actresses – "cannot tell who".

Producing deals include debut features by two directors, Lee Chatametikool's Past Love and Sompot Chidgasornpongs' train movie, Are We There Yet.

Meanwhile, Uncle Boonmee is in the Sydney Film Festival, where it played today and is said to be one of the festival's hot tickets, alongside The Runaways. Lots of stuff about it on Twitter.

Matt Riviera:

By engaging truthfully with the natural & the supernatural, Uncle Boonmee conjures a world entirely outside my own, for which I'm grateful.

Kid Twist:

Like taking a quiet, contemplative stroll with the spirits. Haunting yet whimsical. Hypnotic and gently moving.

Others were not sure what to think. Some liked it. Some did not.

Next, Uncle Boonmee heads to the Munich Film Festival, where it heads up the Focus on the Far East, playing alongside another Thai indie festival hit, Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History.

Phuket Film Festival 2010: Capsule reviews, part 1

The Mountain Lion (เสือภูเขา, Sua Poo Khao), Kom Akadej, 1979 – Before Jija Yanin, Nui Kessarin and young Kat Sasisa burst onto the Thai action-movie scene, there was Jarunee Suksawat, the action queen of Thai films in the 1970s and '80s. She co-stars in The Mountain Lion, portraying a young Hmong girl who becomes a love interest for the hero. He's played by Sorapong Chatree in one of his dozens of ethnic roles. When Jarunee isn't romping through grassy mountain meadows like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, she's somersaulting and flip-flopping around, mowing down bad guys. In fact she does little else than kick butt, and keeps her dignity intact even though she's wearing a chic tribal skirt. Sorapong has double-plaited pigtails and looks more like the Native Americans that Thais might see in big-screen westerns. He favors a crossbow, not a bow and arrow. It's non-stop action, with the characters running over hill and dale, fighting bad guys, for I don't know what reason. Okay, well, they did rape and kill Sorapong's wife. A comic pair of villains marches wherever they go, and are always accompanied by a snare-drum motif. Lek Apichart plays the brother of Jarunee's character, who at first is helping the bad guys. Part of the Phuket Film Festival's Tribute to Khun Kom Akadej – one of seven of Kom's films – The Mountain Lion was the only one subtitled in English. All were screened on poorly mastered DVDs. The 35mm prints have been lost long ago. Kom himself, owner of the Coliseum Paradise Cineplex where the festival is staged, was among the audience of four or five people and regaled his seat neighbors with tales of making this rousing action-adventure. (4/5)


The Prince & Me 4: The Elephant Adventure, Catherine Cyran, 2009 – The fourth in the franchise that started in 2004 with Julia Stiles as a Wisconsin farmgirl medical student who captures the heart of a Danish prince, now has the young royal couple as king and queen. North Dakotan Kam Heskin has played the now-Queen Paige since the second entry. Celebrating their first wedding anniversary, they head off to the tiny fictional Southeast Asian jungle country of Sangyoo to attend another royal wedding. They find the princess bride-to-be (Ase Wang, looking every bit the watery-eyed Disney princess) less-than-enthused with her arranged marriage to a power-hungry industrialist (played with thuggish menace by Thaitanium rapper "Way" Prinya Intachai). Soon King Edvard, Queen Paige and their comic foil Soren (Jonathan Firth) are in the jungle, looking for a lost royal elephant meant to bless the ceremony. They need to retrieve the elephant, help the oppressed Red Ming rebel tribe and stop the royal wedding so the princess can marry her true love, a stable boy. This is a made-for-video production for the U.S. and U.K. markets, an ABC After-School Special intended for princess-obsessed pre-teen girls. The plot contrivances are only meant to make for as much kissing as possible. Not my cup of tea, but I still enjoyed it, thanks to lively action involving Selina Lo as a palace aide named Rayen who tracks elephants, hangs off the front of a moving Jeep, uses martial-arts moves on soldiers and has a degree in psychology from Oxford (with the clipped British accent to match). She's a no-nonsense kind of gal, so of course she falls in love with the uptight Danish royal protocol droid Soren. The audience for this Made-in-Thailand Thai premiere screening in the Green Man pub's Egyptian-themed banquet hall, gasped at the similarities to Thai current events, which had the Red Ming rebel movement burning down a factory. But it's all fictional and any similarities are clearly unintended, right? Production values are top notch, with all the shooting handled by De Warrenne Pictures. Most of the locations, including the grand Sangyoo palace, surrounding jungle and rented elephant, chickens and water buffalo, are on or near the Promittr Productions lot built in Kanchanaburi by MC Chatrichalerm Yukol for the Naresuan movies. (3/5)


Do Elephants Pray?, Paul Hills, 2009 – Here, the elephants are metaphorical meanings only, wrapped up in the poetry of this indie comedy-romance – a rare British film that doesn't involve gangsters or ancient costumes. Johnnie Hurn, who co-scripted and produced, is an uptight London ad agency's idea man. Addicted to coffee and cigarettes, Callum does have his metaphysical side with tai chi lessons. A secretive, mysterious, free-spirited Frenchwoman (Julie Dray) pops in and out of his life. She eventually drags the chap into the French woods, where he goes AWOL from his ad agency in the midst of a campaign to come up with a slogan to sell a cranberry cocktail to men. A snake-like co-worker (Marc Warren) is keen to take over Callum's position. Stuck in the woods as he's led to the Lake of No Return, Callum is forced to discover new meaning in his life. At times I couldn't help but think of Pen-ek Ratanaruang's forest-based romantic thriller Nymph (Nang Mai), which shares similar themes of transformation and loss, and a naked person running through the woods. An energetic soundtrack keeps things bouncing along. Do Elephants Pray? was reviewed on a screener DVD. The movie will show as part of the Phuket Film Festival at 7 on Saturday at the Green Man pub. (4/5)

Phuket Film Festival 2010: Schedule slashed

After three days of sparse attendance, Phuket Film Festival director Scott Rosenberg felt he had no choice but to cut his losses and reduce the screenings, slashing the fest from 10 days to seven days of programming.

Rain over the weekend was partially blamed for keeping audiences away from the films at the Coliseum Paradise Multiplex in Old Phuket Town.

The high cost of hiring the digital projection equipment is another factor prompting the move.

“It’s embarrassing to have directors come all this way and not have buns in the seats,” Scott told me last night.

Though I have to say, I accidentally ducked in to a screening of the Thai comedy Po Taek and there were lots of "buns in the seats".

Meanwhile, just four or five souls watched the rousing 1979 action-adventure The Mountain Lion (Sua Poo Khao), with director Kom Akadej – also owner of the Coliseum Cineplex Group – in attendance.

Around 30 people hit last night's screening of The Prince & Me 4: The Elephant Adventure – actually a lot of fun – though around half of the crowd were badged VIP guests of the fest. The screening has held in an incredible ancient Egyptian-themed meeting hall, built behind the Green Man pub. That's another story in itself, but I don't have time to tell it.

The fest still ends on Sunday, with the world premiere of Yuthlert Sippapak's Friday Killer. The movie will be shown at a dance club, Stereolab, in Surin Beach.

But during the week, there are no screenings some days at Coliseum Paradise. Monday was dropped, as was Thursday, and most of Tuesday, except for the IIFA-award-winning Bollywood hit, 3 Idiots.

Oh, and Thursday will still have the Meet the Directors night at Cape Yamu, with Darnell Martin of Cadillac Records. She's been hanging out, taking in the sights and enjoying the sun, sand and surf – when it's not raining – with her young son.

At the Coliseum, the focus is on the 35mm prints – French films from the Alliance Francaise, Bollywood films from Bollywood Thai and Repo Men, which looks likely to be the only screening the Forest Whitaker and Jude Law sci-fi movie is going to get in Thailand.

Also, Clash (Bay Rong) director Le Thanh Son came from Vietnam toting 35mm reels of his action film starring Johnny Nguyen and Veronica Ngo.

Which is about the coolest thing I can think of.

The Hollywood-Thai romance Bitter/Sweet (ข้ามฟ้า หาสูตรรัก) will still make its star-studded Thailand premiere at the festival on Friday night, with another screening on Saturday. It opens in a wide release on June 17.

Indie filmmakers, who had their movies on DVD or other digital formats, have had their movies cut completely.

“I’ve been to a lot of film festivals, but never …,” said director Bradley Cox, his words trailing off in disappointment, just after he got the news his film was being dropped.

Cox’s documentary about the slain Cambodian labor activist, Who Killed Chea Vichea?, was to have been shown on Monday.

"Some filmmakers pissed off due to schedule changes," the festival tweeted early in the day. "What's better, being pissed off or embarrassed when film runs without 'buns' in seats?"

The rain has hampered other aspects of the fest. Saturday's gala opening party at Royal Phuket Marina abruptly ended by a shower.

The rain started shortly after a bizarre awards presentation, which had Scott handing the same clear-acrylic conch shell trophy to all the festival sponsors. Because of the red-shirt protests in Bangkok, individual trophies couldn't be completed in time, so Scott had to hand over the sample symbolically and then wrest it away from the person he just gave it to.

Ironically, Dr. Prof. Apinan Poshyananda, the deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Culture, gave a short welcoming speech that alluded to "stormy weather", but he was talking about politics. Some guy was there with a video camera, and you can watch it at The Nation's website.

And it's not just the red shirts Apinan was talking about. Just days before, Culture Minister Teera Slukpetch, who was to attend the festival, was stripped of his portfolio in a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. The new culture minister, Niphit Intharasombat, was royally endorsed over the weekend.

In his address, Apinan said he thought the Phuket fest had a lot of potential.

“You have Cannes in France, Pusan in South Korea. Why not have Phuket as the heart of the film industry in Southeast Asia?”

But after three days of tiny audiences for the second edition of the festival – scheduled and then cancelled last year – the rocky path of the Phuket Film Festival appears to have hit a dead end.

Said Scott last night: “Phuket just isn’t ready for an international film festival.”

Check the schedule.

A monk on a mystery in Mindfulness and Murder

Since seeing Shadow of the Naga and 9 Wat earlier this year, I'm a sucker for interesting, gritty stories about monastic life in Buddhist Thailand, and when producer-director Tom Waller told me about Mindfulness and Murder, the hairs on my neck were standing on end.

It's a murder mystery, based on the novel by the same name by Nick Wilgus, published by Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai.

The hard-boiled tale involves a Buddhist monk who used to be a homicide detective, tasked with solving a murder case.

Here's the synopsis:

In Mindfulness and Murder, a homeless boy comes up murderd at Wat Mahanat, which runs a homeless youth program. The abbot asks Father Ananda, a former homicide detective, to look into it.

The story opens with the discovery of the body, which has been dumped in a bathroom in the back of the monastery/temple complex. The body is that of a young man, pushed face first in an earthen water jar. Ananda takes the body out of the water and discovers that the boy has a candle shoved in his mouth and both eyes gouged out.

The local police arrive, but do little. The homeless boy does not have much priority for them. So Ananda begins investigating the clues for himself. He soon discovers that there is drug dealing going on at this temple. A monk goes missing. Has he fled the scene after killing the boy? Ananda keeps at it, unraveling the clues one by one until he discovers what happened to both the boy and the missing monk.

Waller, head of De Warrenne Pictures, is directing and co-producing with Michael Pritchett. The screenplay is adapted by Wilgus.

The cast has Vithaya Pansringarm as Ananda, with veteran actor Jaran "See Tao" Petcharoen as the temple's abbot. "Way" Prinya Intachai, the rapper from Thaitanium who also plays the villain in The Prince and Me 4: The Elephant Adventure is featured, along with Miss Universe 2005 Natalie Glebova Srichaphan.

Mindfulness and Murder is in editing right now, and hopefully we'll be hearing more about it soon.