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In the 2015 omnibus film Ten Years, five Hong Kong filmmakers offered visions of what their country might look like in 2025. Dystopian and fiercely critical of China’s interference in Hong Kong politics, it proved a massive public hit despite the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its distribution. In light of that success, the Ten Years International Project was born with the intention to export the concept and give voice to filmmakers from other Asian nations. The first of these to be completed is Ten Years Thailand – two more from Japan and Taiwan are in the works – featuring contributions by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat, and Chulayarnnon Siriphol.

Aditya’s opening short could easily take place in the present. Shot in black-and-white, it is set in a small art gallery that is hosting a photography exhibition. A group of soldiers arrive and order the pictures to be taken down...

There are few filmmakers working today who are like Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Besides having a name that leaves writers waking up in cold sweats, “Joe” as he lovingly goes by is the resident surrealist poet of Thai cinema, as interested in striking tones and moods as he is sending his films off into lands of wookie-like specters and fish with, ahem, oral capabilities, all while keeping them grounded by genuine human discussions about everything from grief to sexuality.

And then there’s Cemetery Of Splendor. Arguably the director’s most accessible work to date, relations can be made to previous Weerasethakul films, particularly Tropical Malady and the hospital-set pair of narratives in Syndromes and a Century, but this is a beast of an entirely different color. Khon Kaen is the setting of this film, specifically a former school that has become a clinic housing and healing military types who...

Landing on the Sight & Sound and Cahiers Du Cinema best of the year lists, as well as making the rankings of the Best Of 2015 from our own writers Jessica Kiang and Oliver Lyttelton, for those of us who weren't able to catch Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Cemetery Of Splendour" on the festival circuit, the good news is that it's finally coming to cinemas. And even more, a new trailer is here.  Read More: Cannes Review: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 'Cemetery Of Splendour' Starring Banlop Lomnoi, Jenjira Pongpas, and Jarinpattra Rueangram, the film is another journey into the director's unique world where drama and magic seem to fold over on themselves, and he's once again spinning a story that falls somewhere between memory and fairy tale. Here's the official synopsis:  Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a...

Sundance 2016 is fast approaching. Last week we posted the movie lineup of Midnight and Competition film selections. We now have the complete lineup for the premieres in both the feature film and documentary categories. We also have their selections for the Spotlight and Kid films. I've also included a list of special events.

There are a lot of great films on this list that I'm excited about seeing because of the incredible talent involved. Viggo Mortensen and Frank Langella star in Captain Fantastic; Laura Dern, Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams star in Certain Women; Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates and Danny Glover star in Complete Unknown; Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez star in The Fundamentals of Caring; John Krasinski directed a film called The Hollars which he stars in with Anna Kendrick, Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins, Sharlto Copley, and Charlie Day; Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi has made a new...

Kate Plays ChristineThe lineup for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, taking place between January 21 -31, has been announced.U.S. Dramatic COMPETITIONAs You Are (Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, USA): As You Are is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation. Cast: Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton, Amandla Stenberg, John Scurti, Scott Cohen, Mary Stuart Masterson. World Premiere The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker, USA): Set against the antebellum South, this story follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. After witnessing countless atrocities against fellow slaves, Nat devises a plan to lead his people to freedom. Cast: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, Mark Boone Jr. World PremiereChristine (Antonio Campos,...

Top brass at the Park City festival have rounded out the feature line-up with a dazzling selection on paper that includes new work from Asif Kapadia and other returning alumni such as Todd Solondz, Taika Waititi and Joshua Marston.Scroll Down For Full List

Road movie The Fundamentals Of Caring by Rob Burnett starring Paul Rudd will close the festival, while Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie And The Rising Sun is the Salt Lake City Gala Film. Heid Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Norman Lear: Just Another Version Of You is a Day One Film.

The Premieres line-up introduces Indignation, the feature directorial debut from former Focus Features CEO and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon screenwriter James Schamus, and the latest world premieres from John Carney, Kenneth Lonergan, Ira Sachs and Diego Luna.

The Documentary Premieres section encompass latest films from Werner Herzog, Spike Lee, Liz Garbus and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.

The Spotlight...

Top brass at the Park City festival have rounded out the feature line-up with a dazzling selection on paper that includes new work from Asif Kapadia and other returning alumni such as Todd Solondz, Taika Waititi and Joshua Marston.Scroll Down For Full List

Road movie The Fundamentals Of Caring by Rob Burnett starring Paul Rudd will close the festival, while Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie And The Rising Sun is the Salt Lake City Gala Film. Heid Ewing and Rachel Grady’s Norman Lear: Just Another Version Of You is a Day One Film.

The Premieres line-up introduces Indignation, the feature directorial debut from former Focus Features CEO and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon screenwriter James Schamus, and the latest world premieres from John Carney, Kenneth Lonergan, Ira Sachs and Diego Luna.

The Documentary Premieres section encompass latest films from Werner Herzog, Spike Lee, Liz Garbus and Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.

The Spotlight...

Dear Fernando,Did you catch Tsai Ming-liang’s masterpiece Journey to the West at the festival last year? Those hoping that Tsai’s follow-up after that exhilaratingly pure film and the majestically decayed Stray Dogs would have a similarly expansive vision will be disappointed by Afternoon, a two-odd-hour, four-take long video conversation between the director and his inseparable actor-muse-alter-ego-best-friend, Lee Kang-sheng, made as a gallery installation to accompany Stray Dogs but shown in a cinema at Tiff. Yet by its very nature Tsai’s sorrowful minimalism has never been more emotional. The director is a veritable blabbermouth, and whether spurned on either by the mysterious motivation for the project, his interlocuting actor’s dry silence, or nervousness in the presence of the quite noticable camera crew (awkwardly tipping their heads in the frame, taking photographs, and later even asking questions as the conversation dwindles), Tsai Ming-liang nervously but avidly, movingly...

It's hard to believe, but in just two days, the red carpet will be rolled out at the Cannes Film Festival will be underway. There are a plethora of films we're anticipating, and on the more arthouse side of things is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Cemetery Of Splendour." And today, the first three clips from the movie have arrived. Jenjira Pongpas ("Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives") and Banlop Lomnoi ("Tropical Malady") star in the film, and as these scenes suggest, it's another effort from the filmmaker that once again brings together his penchant for patient storytelling and striking tableaus. Here's the official synopsis: In Khon Kaen a lonesome middle-aged housewife tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance. Check out the clips below. No U.S. distribution yet for this one.

While Gaspar Noe's provocative, pornographic "Love" hogged the attention of the latest additions to the Cannes Film Festival lineup, cinephiles were cheered by another auteur returning to the Croisette: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. And a couple glimpses at his latest "Cemetery Of Splendour" have arrived. Read More: Interview: Apichatpong Weerasethakul Wants To Work With Chiara Mastroianni & Joan Allen The Palme d'Or winner for "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," looks set to deliver another movie in that hazy space between reality, fantasy, dreams, and more. And past collaborators Jenjira Pongpas ('Uncle Boonmee') and Banlop Lomnoi ("Tropical Malady") take the lead roles. Here's the official synopsis:  In Khon Kaen a lonesome middle-aged housewife tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance. "I write this film as a rumination on...

Love in Khon Kaen

Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul // Writer: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Though he premiered a medium length film at Cannes 2012, Mekong Hotel, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul hasn’t debuted a feature length since his 2010 Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. His latest, Love in the Khon Kaen (formerly known as a project called Cemetery of Kings) promises to be another mystical enigma from the provocative director, described as a film about a lonesome middle-age housewife who tends a soldier with sleeping sickness and falls into a hallucination that triggers strange dreams, phantoms, and romance. Weersethakul collaborates once more with familiar castmembers, including Jenjira Pongpas (Boonmee; Syndromes and a Century) and Banlop Lomnoi (Tropical Malady).

Cast: Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi

Producers: Kick the Machine Films’ Simon Field (Mekong Hotel), Illumination Films’ Keith Griffiths (Berberian Sound Studio)

U.S. Distributor: Rights available

Release Date: Apparently in post-production,...

CANNES -- Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethaku makes experimental films outside that country's studio system. Rigorously uncommercial and for most viewers impenetrable, his second feature, "Tropical Malady", will prove a strain for even his loyal fans. Certainly for most audiences the viewing experience will prove not only tedious but bewildering. If the walkouts and boos mingled with applause at its press screening here mean anything, the film may stump the art-film crowd as well.

The film comes in two parts. In the first, a young soldier Keng (Banlop Lomnoi) falls for a country boy named Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee). They sit around with his Tong's mother, listening to the sounds of the night air. Away from his home, Keng kisses and fondles Tong's hand. (Whatever does that mean? one wonders.)

Then the screen goes blank and we are meant to understand that Tong has disappeared. Now we enter the folkloric section of the movie, in which the soldier enters the jungle looking for Tong or a ghost or a wild beast that is slaughtering cows. It is not clear.

This section is shot at night in a jungle in northeast Thailand. This effectively keeps the screen nearly pitch black so one is lucky to see anything. The highlight comes when a monkey is glimpsed and his gibbering is given subtitled dialogue. Later a tiger appears, but isn't given anything to say.

Finally, a ghost appears in the form of a naked man who wrestles and apparently defeats the soldier. Hard to say though since this, too, takes place in the dark. Which is where Weerasethakul leaves his audience for most of the film.

TROPICAL MALADY

An Anna Sanders Films production co-produced by TIFA Downtown Pictures, Thoke+Moebius film and Kick the Machine

Credits:

Writer/director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Producers: Paiboon Damrongchaithaqm, Marco Muller, Christoph Thoke, Axel Moebius, Pantham Thongsang

Directors of photography: Vichit Tanapaniktch, Jarin Pengpanitch, Jean Louis Vialard

Production designer: Akekarat Homiaor

Costume designer: Pilaitip Jamniam

Editor: Lee Chatamethikool

Cast:

Keng: Banlop Lomnoi

Tong: Sakda Kaewbuadee

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 120 minutes...

CANNES -- Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethaku makes experimental films outside that country's studio system. Rigorously uncommercial and for most viewers impenetrable, his second feature, "Tropical Malady", will prove a strain for even his loyal fans. Certainly for most audiences the viewing experience will prove not only tedious but bewildering. If the walkouts and boos mingled with applause at its press screening here mean anything, the film may stump the art-film crowd as well.

The film comes in two parts. In the first, a young soldier Keng (Banlop Lomnoi) falls for a country boy named Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee). They sit around with his Tong's mother, listening to the sounds of the night air. Away from his home, Keng kisses and fondles Tong's hand. (Whatever does that mean? one wonders.)

Then the screen goes blank and we are meant to understand that Tong has disappeared. Now we enter the folkloric section of the movie, in which the soldier enters the jungle looking for Tong or a ghost or a wild beast that is slaughtering cows. It is not clear.

This section is shot at night in a jungle in northeast Thailand. This effectively keeps the screen nearly pitch black so one is lucky to see anything. The highlight comes when a monkey is glimpsed and his gibbering is given subtitled dialogue. Later a tiger appears, but isn't given anything to say.

Finally, a ghost appears in the form of a naked man who wrestles and apparently defeats the soldier. Hard to say though since this, too, takes place in the dark. Which is where Weerasethakul leaves his audience for most of the film.

TROPICAL MALADY

An Anna Sanders Films production co-produced by TIFA Downtown Pictures, Thoke+Moebius film and Kick the Machine

Credits:

Writer/director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Producers: Paiboon Damrongchaithaqm, Marco Muller, Christoph Thoke, Axel Moebius, Pantham Thongsang

Directors of photography: Vichit Tanapaniktch, Jarin Pengpanitch, Jean Louis Vialard

Production designer: Akekarat Homiaor

Costume designer: Pilaitip Jamniam

Editor: Lee Chatamethikool

Cast:

Keng: Banlop Lomnoi

Tong: Sakda Kaewbuadee

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 120 minutes...