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Thai Cannes Winner arrives in UK
This year's winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme D'Or, has been showing in art cinemas and on occasion at the National Film Theatre in London but unfortunately it isn't the easiest film to find. From 19th November it goes on general release, tough we'll see just how easy it is to find inthe cinemas. See below for how to find the next showing. It's a shame: the film has had fantastic reviews. It follows Uncle Boonmee who returns home with kidney failure. In his dying days he recalls his past lives. The characters are played by laymen rather than professional actors (for example Uncle Boonmee is played by Sakda Kaewbuadee, a roof welder from Issan), Weerasethakul explores the idea of re-incarnation and was inspired by the stories he heard from the Abbot of a north-eastern temple. This is one of a series of films he has made about an Issan village. READ MORE ABOUT THE FILM. WHO IS APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL? Apichatpong Weerasethakul was born in Bangkok (1970) and grew up in Khon Kaen, north-eastern Thailand. He graduated from Khon Kaen University and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, then a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The Art Institute of Chicago. He started making films and video shorts in 1994 and completed his first feature in 2000. He has also mounted exhibitions and installations in many countries since 1998. Often nonlinear, his works link with memory, invoked in subtle ways personal politics and social issues. Working independently of the Thai commercial film industry, he devotes himself to promoting experimental and independent filmmaking through his company Kick the Machine Films, founded in 1999. Kick the Machine has produced all his feature films. In 2008, he embarked on the Primitive Project, a multi-platform work of which Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives is part. In 2009, he and his work were the subject of a monograph published by the Austrian Film Museum. His art projects and feature films have won him widespread recognition and numerous festival prizes, including two prizes from the Cannes Film Festival. Blissfully Yours won the A Certain Regard Prize in 2002 and Tropical Malady won the Official Competition Jury Prize in 2004. His acclaimed 2006 feature, Syndromes and a Century, was the first Thai film to be selected for competition at the Venice Film Festival and was acclaimed in a number of international polls as one of the best films of the last decade. He lives and works in Chiangmai, Thailand. He is currently preparing his next project on the filmmaker and celebrated author Donald Richie. WHERE IS IT SHOWING? Check out LondonNet for details of UK wide showings... l