Five projects from Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore have been selected to take part in the initial Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab.
Each of the five will see both the director and producer invited to Chiang Mai, Thailand from October 23-30, 2016 to participate in the SEAFIC script lab program as well as the Festival des 3 Continents’ Produire au Sud initiative that takes place alongside it. The filmmakers will also attend a second SEAFIC session in late February 2017, and a final 3rd session in late June 2017.
With genres including crime thriller, arthouse drama, LGBT, and supernatural mystery, the five are:
- “Cu Li Never Cries” (Vietnam, 1st film,) to be directed by Pham Ngoc Lan and produced by Phan Dang Di;
- “Doi Boy” ((Thailand, 1st fiction film,) directed by Nontawat Numbenchapol (whose documentary “BKKY” screens this week in the Busan Film Festival) with Supatcha Thipsena, Steve Chen as producers;
- “In the Eyes of a Stranger” (Singapore, 2nd film,) to be directed by Yeo Siew Hua, with producer Fran Borgia;
- “Regretfully at Dawn” (aka “Arunkarn”) ((Thailand, 2nd film,) to be directed by Sivaroj Kongsakul (“Eternity”) and produced by Pimpaka Towira;
- “You Are There” (Singapore, 1st film,) to be directed by Nicole Midori Woodford and produced by Jeremy Chua.
SEAFIC organizers report receiving a total of 57 applications, with submissions hailing from Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
They were evaluated by a reading committee including TorinoFilmLab’s Matthieu Darras, Sundance Film Institute’s Paul Federbush and Asian Shadow’s Isabelle Glachant, and by a script committee involving Cannes Critics’ Week’s Remi Bonhomme, Tokyo Filmex’s Shozo Ichiyama and director Pen-ek Ratanaruang.
