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Exclusive: Thai sales company Diversion is ramping up its production slate with a trio of titles supported by the new Thai film fund launched through the Thailand Creative Culture Agency (Thacca).

Venice-winning director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s latest film The Burning Giants, now in production on the Thai-Myanmar border, is about an ethnic Karen man with bizarre burn marks all over this body, who is captured by the Thai authorities and sent to a quarantine facility by a patrol unit from the Thai forestry department.

The project is established as a co-production with Singapore’s 13 Little Pictures, France’s Nord-Ouest...

Liu Xing’s Hong Kong-China co-production Say My Name and Gong Yiwen’s mainland China production Her First Taste were both presented with Wip Awards in the works-in-progress section of this year’s Hkiff Industry projects market.

Say My Name also won the White Light Post-Production Award and was one of five winners in the Haf Goes to Cannes program.

In Hkiff Industry’s In Development section, the two Idp Awards went to Waves Under The Sea, a co-production between Hong Kong, China and Macau, directed by Chan Sileong, and Drive South Pray West, co-directed by Thailand’s Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee.

Both the Idp and Wip sections give out two awards – one to a Hong Kong project, including co-productions with Hong Kong, and the other to a project from outside Hong Kong. All four awards come with a cash prize of $12,800.

The Idp Awards and Wip Awards...

Hong Kong International Film Festival Society has announced the 25 in-development projects selected for this year’s Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf). The line-up includes several projects produced by high-profile filmmakers, including Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, India’s Aditya Vikram Sengupta and French producer and writer Sylvie Pialat.

Kore-eda is producing Yellow, the feature debut of Yamaura Miyoh, about a man who lives a life of self-punishment after a fatal car accident. Sengupta is producing Niladri Mukherjee’s debut Republic Of Mahalaxmi Apartment, which examines India’s majority rule issues through a single-mother tenant who becomes her housing estate’s public enemy when she flags a malfunctioning elevator.

Pialat (Les Miserables) is teaming with Chinese producer Nai An on Hu Wei’s feature debut, 49 Days, about a divorced Chinese couple who reunite in Paris to arrange their son’s funeral and confront their past.

The inaugural Ho Chi Minh City International Film Festival (Hiff) in Vietnam has unveiled its line-up of about 100 films, including 12 each for the Southeast Asia competition and for the first or second film competition, with directors Anne Fontaine and Hirokazu Kore-eda among its guests.

Scroll down for line-up

The Asian premiere of French biopic Bolero will open the festival on April 6. Director Fontaine and leading actor Raphaël Personnaz will be present for the film’s Asian premiere, which will take place at the city’s historic Opera House.

Further notable festival guests include acclaimed Japanese director Kore-eda who will receive...

South Korea’s Redice Entertainment, creator of hit webtoon Solo Leveling, has invested in Thai horror The Cursed Land as the company moves to extend activities outside its home market.

Redice Entertainment CEO Woogy Han and Neramitnung Film CEO Kanogwan Watchara signed an investment agreement in Bangkok on Thursday (March 7). It marks the first major outside investment in a Neramitnung Film production, which has previously fully financed its own titles.

“We see immense potential in Thai films, particularly within the horror genre,” said Han. “Genre films like The Cursed Land have a widespread appeal worldwide, presenting us with significant opportunities for growth.

Set in the early 2000s, Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee's “The Cursed Land” distills Thailand's political and ethnic tensions into a thrilling, time-hopping horror film. In locating their film within the vernacular beliefs of a Muslim community, the two directors expand the horizons of Thai horror cinema, traditionally rooted in Buddhist cosmology to instead capture Thailand's historical specters up in a bottle while also indulging in all the conventional pleasures and horrors of the haunted house genre effort which is now screening at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The Cursed Land Screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam

After the death of his wife, plant worker Mit (Ananda Everingham) moves with his teenage daughter May (Jennis Oprasert) to a derelict mansion in a Muslim-majority suburb of Bangkok. A thorough skeptic, Mit gets rid of the talismans in the house, defying the warnings of locals Heem (Bront Palarae) and Zainab (Seeda...

On the occasion of the Cursed Land screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Panu Aree talks to Panos Kotzathanasis about the historical context behind the film, combining Buddhism and Islam, the way the production worked for the movie, working with Jennis Oprasert and the rest of the cast, the situation with the Thai movie industry at the moment, and other topics.

https://youtu.be/cFP88M-vgYE...

Six Chinese-language genre projects have been unveiled by the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, which has partnered with talent agency CAA China on an initiative to develop fresh titles.

Titled Hkiff Industry - CAA China Genre Initiative (shortened as Hcg), the scheme will showcase the projects to an industry audience at Filmart and the Hong Kong - Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf), which runs March 11-13.

The selection includes Call Of Lobster, directed by Yin Chen-Hao and produced by Cheng Wei-Hao and Jin Pai-Lunn, who previously worked together on Taiwanese smash hit Man In Love. This comedy drama is...

Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee make their directorial fiction feature debut on The Cursed Land, a Thai movie that’s hitting the Cannes market this week.

Screen Daily reports, “WME Independent is handling international sales at Cannes.”

“The film follows a widower and his daughter who travel to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a Muslim witch doctor after unleashing a djinn in a rundown house.”

Ananda Everingham (Shutter), Bront Palarae (Satan’s Slaves: Communion) and Jennis Oprasert (Where We Belong) star in The Cursed Land.

Screen Daily details, “Shooting wrapped last week on the film, which was mostly shot in Narathiwat province and the adjacent rainforest, Hala-Bala Wildlife Sanctuary.”

The post ‘The Cursed Land’ – Thai Horror Movie Consults a Witch Doctor After Unleashing a Djinn appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

WME Independent is handling international sales on the film at Cannes.

Ananda Everingham, Bront Palarae and Jennis Oprasert have been revealed as the cast of Thai horror The Cursed Land, on which WME Independent is handling international sales at Cannes.

Written and directed by Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee as their directorial fiction feature debut, the film follows a widower and his daughter who travel to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a Muslim witch doctor after unleashing a djinn in a rundown house. A first look at Ananda in the film can be seen above.

Ananda is...

Further winners included ‘Posthouse’ from the Philippines.

Brazilian director Renata Pinheiro’s fantasy horror Carrion has claimed the top Bucheon Award at the 15th Network of Asian Fantastic Films (Naff) project market, which runs parallel to the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) in South Korea.

The revenge thriller, based on a graphic novel by Brazilian writer and artist Shiko, follows a woman was kidnapped by a gang of outlaws and makes a pact with an otherworldly entity to seek vengeance.

Scoll down for full list of winners

The project, produced by Andre Pereira for Rio-based Lupa Filmes, received a cash prize of KRW20 million.

Horror and action titles include ’The Cursed Land’ and a sequel to ‘The Bridge Curse’.

Nascent US sales outfit WME Independent has swooped on five genre features from Southeast Asia and Taiwan, and is launching pre-sales at the Marché.

The deals were brokered by Singapore-based Nelson Mok, WME’s director, advisory, film group, who is in talks with international buyers in Cannes.

The titles include Thai horror The Cursed Land, co-directed by Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee, which follows a widower who travels to Thailand’s deep south to seek help from a witch doctor. Producer is Nonzee Nimibutr, whose credits include Nang Nak.

Colleen Kwok’s “The Stars The Sun The Moon” won the top prize for a Hong Kong-produced in-development project at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum. Mainland Chinese title “Not Found” by Huang Ningwei won the equivalent prize for the best non-Hong Kong project.

A total of 14 prizes were announced at a virtual ceremony on Wednesday, with “Silent Ghosts,” another local project, directed by Hang Yeng, collecting the top work in progress award.

Haf organizers said that this year’s online platform hosted more than 900 private meetings between filmmakers and potential backers, a figure that was almost double the level of activity in 2020, when Covid forced the project market into a virtual format for the first time.

The third time it has been staged remotely, Haf this year hosted 43 projects, including 15 works-in-progress. There were also 11 Hong Kong projects, with 21 filmmakers presenting their debut feature projects. The event ran for three...

Leading indie film project market, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum has revealed a selection of 28 titles for its twentieth edition and confirmed that it will be held online for the third time in a row.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our 20th anniversary by hosting our usual in-person event due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions,” Hkiff industry director Jacob Wong said. “Nevertheless, based on experience gained from the last two years, we will strive to improve our online booking and meeting system to make it a breeze for all participants.”

The market will operate March 14-16, 2022, alongside the 26th edition of rights market Hong Kong FilMart (March 14-17.)

The market contains a familiar mix of experienced hands and newcomers. Among the well-established producers and directors with projects selected are: Huang Ji (2021 Rotterdam festival winner “Egg and Stone”); Hong Kong’s Jun Li...

The selection includes eight Hong Kong projects and the first-ever Thai-Muslim horror

The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf) has announced 28 in-development projects for its 20th anniversary edition.

All are fiction projects, including eight from Hong Kong, 12 debut features and projects spearheaded by renowned filmmakers and producers including Huang Ji, Jun Li, Tetsuya Mariko, Ida Panahandeh, Michael J. Werner, Fruit Chan, Nonzee Nimibutr, Yang Chao and Jane Zheng.

For the third year in a row, Haf will run online from March 14-16 alongside the 26th edition of Hong Kong Filmart.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our...