THE KOREAN CONNECTION

       Fourteen years ago not many souls believed that the sombre port city of Pusan would make it. But it did. Today, the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) is arguably Asia's leading film festival in terms of influence, image and business impact. Every October the PIFF is an un-skippable rendezvous for Asian filmmakers and investors who congregate to watch new films and sniff out new deals. In short, it has become a success story - albeit with internal politics and regular complaints - of carefully mapped-out cultural and economic policies that many cities, Bangkok included, look at with admiration and envy.
       This year the PIFF runs from October 8 to 15, and its ties with the Thai film community seem most pronounced.
       This weekend new films and new projects from Thailand are making their debut in the Korean seaside city, evidence that the sometimes aggressive, tirelessly assiduous strategy of Pusan has established the place as a centre of film activities, artistic and financial, that nobody would want to miss out on. Its constant network-expansion and cultivation of personal friendship with leading figures in the Thai - and Asian film community also strengthen its position, and again this is the development that Bangkok still fails to pursue seriously.
       The main budget of PIFF comes from the city of Pusan, plus various sponsors drawn by the starry profile of the event. The festival also organises a funding body that supports young filmmakers from around Asia, which emphasises its aura of a benevolent brother. Below are previews of new, exciting Thai projects that have been invited to be part of this year's PIFF.
       PHUKET INPUSAN
       Honestly the Hae-Un-Dae beach in Pusan isn't nearly as pretty as those sandy stretches in Phuket.But that's another story: this weekend the new Thai film called Phuket will enjoy the honour of having its world premiere at Pusan International Film Festival, held a sandbox's throw away from South Korea's most popular beach, before the film finds its way to into souvenir bags as one of the knick-knacks to promote our Andaman jewel.
       "It's a film made to promote Phuket, but it also has a story, and I believe it's a good story," says Aditya Assarat, a well-known director who was asked to shoot this short movie by the Phuket Tourism Association."I had the freedom to come up with a story, and since Koreans represent a large proportion of foreign tourists in Phuket, I thought it was a good idea to make a movie that relates to them."
       Though a short film,Phuket has the formidable calibre of a feature production. For a start, it stars Sorapong Chatri, recently crowned National Artist and inarguably Thailand's most respected actor.Then the film had the fortune of casting Lim Soojung, one of Korea's most popular actresses (from I'm a Cyborg But That's OK , in which she costarred with Korean superstar Rain), which automatically raises the profile of this otherwise little movie. In the film, Sorapong plays a limousine driver who develops a bond with a young Korean tourist over her week-long stay on the island.
       "When we got Lim Soo-jung, who's a big star,we knew that we had to match her with a major Thai star, and we were lucky to get Sorapong,"says Aditya. It helped that Aditya, though an independent filmmaker, just won the Subhannahongsa award for best director for his Wonderful Town .Sorapong was there at the star-studded event, and Aditya was not a complete unknown to him."Phuket is a two-hander- it relies solely on the performances to two people - so it's important that we get skilled actors to play them."
       Despite the "tourism" purpose of the film, Aditya is a director with such a delicate touch that nothing ever seems explicit in any of his films.Phuket isn't about the beaches or the bars; it's about Phuket as a place of memories. After the Pusan premiere, the film is likely to find a slot on television, then the investors - the Phuket Tourism Association plans to screen it on flights coming into the island.The DVD of the film will also become a souvenir for sale. Other tourism-driven provinces, if finance allowed, should feel free to copy the idea.
       "Phuket is part of a promotion campaign," says the director,"but I'm sure the film also has a true worth of its own."
       MUNDANE HISTORY INPUSAN
       Probably the most-anticipated feature debut of the year, Anocha Suwichakornpong's Jao Nok Krachok (English title:Mundane History ) secures its deserved spot in the New Current Competition at Asia's premier movie jamboree that's taking place this minute in South Korea.
       Among the batch of fresh-blood Thai filmmakers, Anocha's string of impressive,ambitious short movies have teased our cinematic palates through their serious conceptual formations. Anocha doesn't just direct; she seems to sculpt her films. Now with an allegorical story about a troubled household and a direct flashback to our recent political lunacy,Mundane History , her first long film, is a socially-relevant work that represents the consciousness of our troubled times.
       "The idea was to tell a story about father and son, and I began by writing it as a short story," says Anocha, whose short film Graceland was the first from Thailand to be chosen by Cannes Film Festival in 2006."Over two years I revised the story and soon there were so many versions of it. Then the political things came up and they found their way into the story."
       Mundane History takes place principally in a house where a sick, bedbound son maintains a tense relationship with his domineering father. By telling this simple family drama, Anocha manages to mould the narrative to include a weighty discussion about the state of our country and the human condition that we find inescapable - the condition that's biological, psychological and even universal.
       "Politics is part of our condition at the moment," says Anocha."With the film, I intend to talk about society by using the family as a starting point. Either at the individual level or the larger social level, we're facing problems that come from the structure of our society, and we're not sure how to deal with it. Part of my idea came from the story of my friend who's very frustrated with her dominating father, while her mother was meek and quiet. The issue of seniority conditions the way we live in this society."
       In other words, Anocha is telling a big story through a small story, and that makes Mundane History a genuinely challenging debut. The film was completed with the postproduction support from Pusan International Film Festival, which is why it has to premiere in Pusan rather than in Bangkok.
       Yet in truth, this is a film whose genealogy was spawned from specific social codes so that only Thai viewers will grasp its deeper genes. The good news is,Mundane History will have its Thai premiere as the opening film of World Film Festival of Bangkok on November 6. Later Anocha will also try to release the movie in theatres, though no details have been confirmed.
       Main picture: Korean actress Lim Soo-jung stars in a Thai short film,Phuket , which is having its premiere at Pusan International Film Festival this weekend.
       ISAN INPUSAN
       Once a well-known child star, Pramoj Sangsorn, a man with dark glasses and unkempt charisma, has been toiling in the murky waters trying to find money to launch his feature film project for years. This weekend Pramoj's script - not the film, not now - will make its presence felt in Pusan, highlighting the fact that this Korean movie event sees as part of its job the task of supporting young filmmakers from less rich countries.
       Pramoj's project,Tham Rasi Salai , was awarded a generous script development fund (300,000 baht) from Pusan International Film Festival.With a screenplay steeped in narrative arcana and Third-World surrealism it's hard to imagine Pramoj getting a nod from local producers. The story takes place in the titular Northeastern village, Rasi Salai in Si Sa Ket, where the government is building dams that threaten to wipe out the people's livelihoods. Inside this socio-political frame, the drama happens in a small family where the father believes that his dead son has been reborn as a monitor lizard, the blasphemous reptile deemed as the ultimate bad omen in Thai beliefs.
       "When I submitted the script to one of the Thai producers, they asked if I could change the lizard to a bird," Pramoj says in a deadpan tone."Of course I couldn't."
       Pramoj's father came from Rasi Salai, though he himself was born and raised in Bangkok."When I went back to my dad's village, I met old people there who told me stories," he says."That inspired me to write something. The idea of the film began as a family drama, but along the way, I realised that politics slowly became part of my consciousness, with what's happening in the country and the planned Rasi Salai dams.
       "Once I thought politics was something that happened somewhere else. Now I know that it's happening right here and its impact is personal."
       In 2006 Pramoj's short film,Tsu , made to remember the aftermath of the tsunami that struck Phuket in 2004, was the first Thai short to be invited by the Venice International Film Festival. That helped raise his profile internationally. And now, Pusan is embracing the young Thai, or at least his unusual script."It's still a long way to go. But I'm hopeful that the film will happen."
       ENEMIES INPUSAN
       Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham is unveiling his new project,called Enemies , at Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), a financing forum which is part of PIFF.
       Enemies tells the story of two teenage brothers and their journey to Bangkok after their father was killed during the war on drugs.
       PPP is a forum where directors have a chance to meet potential investors. Every year, a few hundred scripts are sent to PPP, but only 20 are be picked to participate. Ekachai's project is the only one from Thailand that got a slot in the final round.
       BANGKOK INPUSAN
       After premiering as the closing programme of last week's Bangkok International Film Festival, four films from the ensemble Sawasdee Bangkok will find their international audience in Pusan. The anthology is actually made up of nine short films, but Pusan decided to screen only four helmed by Thai directors with international clout.
       The four shorts are Silence by Pen-ek Ratanaruang (who also serves on a Pusan jury this year),Sightseeing by Wisit Sasanatieng,Bangkok Blues by Aditya Assarat (see "Phuket in Pusan", above),and Pi Makham by Kongdej Jaturanrasmee. The four films, made on the theme of Bangkok, were initiated by Local Colour and TV Thai. They're scheduled to be broadcast on TV Thai (formerly Thai PBS) very soon.