Pop Pictures

Take/Know/Low/Yee, the short film we shot in Satun with local students is making its world premiere at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in France!  It is the largest film festival in the world that’s dedicated to short films.  Our film is in the International Competition, one of only 85 chosen from over 6,000 entries.  It’s easier to get into Harvard.

Anyway, if we had known that we would be going to Clermont, we would’ve taken some nice photos to make a poster.  But we didn’t because after ten years of making films, we’re still pretty dumb most of the time.  In fact, come to think of it, we might be the first film ever invited to Clermont that has no official photo.  So up there is our wrap photo instead.

Anybody going to Clermont, please go watch our slice of life from Satun.

Here are the show times:

http://www.clermont-filmfest.com/index.php?m=145&c=178?lang=2&lang=2&n1=c&n2=2&n3=&id_prog=100000023

Thank you all our friends, partners, clients, for a wonderful year.  See you in 2012!

Our upcoming projects:

The White Buffalo (Cinemart 2012)

Arun Karn

Interior

Take/Know/Low/Yee (Clermont-Ferrand 2012)

The Busan Film Festival has been a great supporter of Thai filmmakers.  That sounds very run of the mill right?  Like something you read in a press release.  Well, let’s put it this way:  if someone asked “who’s yo daddy?” we would say “Busan”.  That’s the truth of it, and its no exaggeration as the festival has had a hand in almost every recent Thai independent film.

This month, to commemorate our friendship, the ACF (Asian Cinema Fund)  is organizing a limited release of four of our films.  They are Eternity, Mundane History, Wonderful Town, and Uncle Boonmee.  The first three were all completed with the ACF post-production grant, while the fourth won the Palme d’Or, so nobody’s gonna argue with that.

The ACF is in its fifth year and the fund is now expanding its role to include distribution.  It is an honor that out of all the films they have supported over the years, they have chosen to start their distribution arm with Thai films.  If anybody is going to be in Seoul, please come by and say hello.  Juke and Karn will be there to meet the audience on Oct 22 and 23.

Here is the schedule:

Oct 20-26: Theatre Cinecode Sonje (Seoul)

Early Nov: Bucheon Cultural Cinematheque (Bucheon)

Late Nov: Indiplus (Seoul)

That’s what people have been saying to us during the past year.  Okay, well the day is near, Hi-So is finally coming to a theater near you.  The film will screen in limited release as part of Extra Virgin and SF Cinema’s Director Screen Project.  It begins on October 13 in three cinemas and will run for one month according to the schedule below.

SF Central World, SF Central Ladprao, SF Terminal 21

Mon-Fri: 7.00pm

Sat-Sun: 2.00pm, 7.00pm

We also have a Facebook page with all the background information about the movie.  This is the first time we’ve used social media to publicize our work and now we can’t imagine how we ever did anything without it.  It even makes updating our official website seem sadly antiquated.  Oh well.  Nostalgia is comforting in the age of speed.

https://www.facebook.com/hisothemovie

Every year when October rolls around, we all get excited for the trip to Busan for the film festival.  It used to be called the Pusan Film Festival but this year changed its name to Busan.  Maybe like Peking and Beijing or Burma and Myanmar or Puff Daddy and Sean Combs yo!  Anyway, whatever the name, it’s our favorite festival, with nice beaches, cool weather, and weird Korean alcohol.

This year we have a few reasons to be there, though truth be told, even if we had absolutely no reason to go, we’d probably still go for the reasons just explained in the last sentence.  First, our short film 6 to 6 is screening, though not in competition, because Aditya is also on the jury for the short film competition.  That would be total gangster to give a prize to your own film though.

Next, our new project Interior, has received the ACF (Asian Cinema Fund) script development award.  Interior is the first feature by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit who has made many short films and also wrote the script for Bangkok Traffic Love Story, the highest grossing Thai film of 2009.  We could use a little bit of grossing advice so we’re excited for this new project together.

Finally, Aditya is also involved with another project called Southeast Loves which is in the APM (Asian Project Market).  This omnibus film is a collaboration between seven Asian countries.  The producers are Fran Borgia and Yasuhiro Morinaga from Singapore and Japan, and the directors are from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand.  That’s a handful of Asians, man.

See you there homies!

This past week we were  down south teaching local students from Satun and Songkhla to make a short film.  It was part of the ministry of culture’s outreach program to support alternative voices.  The directing instructor was Tip.  Here she is sitting behind the monitor.  She also helped to write the script, which is called Take/Know/Low/ยี้, about two sisters in a traditional Islamic school.

Here are our two sisters, Amina and Aisa.  Amina is in 7th grade and Aisa is in 11th grade. They go to Samakee Islam Wittaya School in Satun.  The crew members were made up of students from this school as well Rajamangala Sriwichai Technical College in Songkhla. We shot for four days in the school, the streets, the market, and a house that belonged to one of the students.

This is a scene when the students go to pray.  Following tradition, the students pray five times a day, and two of those are during school hours: at 12 noon and 4pm.  So we waited until the actual prayer time to shoot.  All the students paired with an instructor for each of the main positions: directing, cinematography, sound, production design, and production management.

Here is everyone setting up to shoot in the house.  It rained really hard and Satun got flooded like many other provinces around the country.  Because of this, our production was delayed as we got flooded right out of our hotel.  There we are standing in the street waiting for the boat to come and get us.  It never came.  So we walked through the water and got bit by some weird water animals.

In the end, we made it out of there with a complete film.  Now starts the editing!

Okay, okay, quit complaining.  It hasn’t been an eternity since Eternity premiered at the Pusan Film Festival 2010, it’s only been a year.  After traveling to festivals around the world, the film is finally coming back home for a limited theatrical release.

We are partnering again with Extra Virgin  and SF Cinemas to bring the film to a theater near you.  That’s literal too.  Eternity will be screening at only one location, SF Central World, for one month beginning this Thursday, September 8.   See you there!

SF Central World

Mon-Fri: 7.00pm

Sat-Sun: 2.00pm, 7.00pm

Keng and Pooh are currently in Paris to visit Karn at the Cannes Residency.  Here are some excerpts from his diary:

“The last day of my trip has arrived.  Today we took a walk to the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery to visit the grave of Francois Truffaut.  I don’t know why we waited until the last day as it’s only a ten minute walk from the Residency.  Anyway, we arrived at four and the place closed at five so we only had an hour to find the gravestone.  There was a map, but it didn’t help much.  When we did find the spot however, it was a fitting resting place for Truffaut.  Simple but classic.”

“After that we walked around Montmartre and listened to a jazz band fill the night air with music.  At around 2am the rain started to fall and it was time to call it a night.  I only got a few hours sleep as I was up at dawn to finish packing.  Seeing me off to the airport, Karn said ‘I wish I was going home too’.  Though Pooh is staying with him another week, inside, I think Karn is already saying his goodbyes.  This is the last photo I took of them.  See you soon little brother”.

Keng and Pooh are currently in Paris to visit Karn at the Cannes Residency.  Here are some excerpts from his diary.

“My routine has become museum hopping during the day and restaurant hopping at night.  The other day I wandered through the Louvre.   I didn’t have much time so I just tried to catch the necessary stuff.  Mona lisa?  Check.  Venus de Milo?  Check.  Liberty leading the people?  Check.  Speaking of liberty and people, I’m reminded of our own elections and how the road ahead will pan out for us.  Even being here, our thoughts are never far from home.”

“It’s rainy here, but even with the grey skies, Paris is filled with beauty.  I spend most days alone, meeting up with Karn and Pooh for dinner.  The other night we went to a Japanese buffet owned by a Lao guy.  He served us some amazing sushi which was the best 15 euros I ever spent.  At night, we take the train home and drink beer.  Living in this foreign land has made us all reflective.  We talk of the future, of ourselves, and of everyone we know.”