filmswelike presents

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES
(Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat)
Cannes 2010 Palme d’Or Winner by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Opens at TIFF Bell Lightbox on Thursday, September 23, 2010


After its North American premiere in the Masters program at TIFF 2010, acclaimed Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives opens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Thursday, September 23, 2010.

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s magical-surrealist film tells the story of an old man suffering from kidney failure who prepares to die and encounters his dead wife, his missing son (who's been transformed into a laser-eyed monkey ghost) and a princess who has sex with a catfish. Inspired by a book by a Buddhist abbot recording accounts of people who remembered their past lives, the film was shot in Isan, in Thailand’s north-east where Weerasethakul spent his childhood.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul tells about the meeting that inspired the film; “A few years ago, when I was living in the north-east, I came across Uncle Boonmee. An abbot at a monastery near my house told me that there was an old man who had arrived at the temple to help out with the temple’s activities and to learn meditation. One day this man, Boonmee, came to an abbot and told him that while he was deep in meditation, he could see his past lives playing behind his closed eyes like a movie. He saw and felt himself to be a buffalo, a cow, even a body-less spirit that roamed around the north-eastern plains. The abbot was impressed but not surprised, because Boonmee was not the first person to tell him about such experiences.

From near and far, he had collected stories from villagers who shared their past lives with him. Later, he published a little book. On its cover one could read: A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives.”

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is the final installment in Weerasethakul’s multi-platform art project called Primitive. Previous installments include a seven-part video installation and the two short films A Letter to Uncle Boonmee and Phantoms of Nabua.”

Working outside the strict confines of the Thai studio system, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an independent Thai film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He trained as an architect in Thailand before earning an MFA in filmmaking at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. “I believe I was lucky to be in this place,” he told an interviwer. “I was encouraged to experiment with the idea that nothing was wrong. That’s the opposite from Thailand’s education system.” His feature films include Tropical Malady, which won a jury prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Blissfully Yours, which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and Syndromes and a Century, which premiered at the 63rd Venice Film Festival and was the first Thai film to be entered in competition there.

Apichatpong Weerasethukal is the subject of a TIFF Mavericks session hosted by Dennis Lee on Saturday, September 18 @ 4pm at TIFF Bell LIghtbox where the film opens on Thursday, September 23, 2010. In the session, film critic Dennis Lim will interview Weerasethakul onstage and take the audience through his career, illustrated with film clips.

Running time: 114 minutes

High rez images, downloadable materials and press notes!

Media Contact
V Kelly + Associates
416-466-9799, info@vkpr.ca

Tags: TIFF Bell Lightbox

filmswelike are pleased to announce times for 3 great films which will appear at the 2010 CALGARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
The surprise winner of the Palme d'Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, the latest masterpiece from Thai master Apichatpong Weerasethakul—whose previous feature Syndromes and a Century was voted TIFF Cinematheque's #1 film of the past decade—is also the final segment of his multi-platform film/installation project Primitive.

Calgary International Film Festival: Buy Tix Online!
Friday, Oct. 1, 07:15pm - Eau Claire Market - Cineplex Odeon - #1


THE LIGHT THIEF by Aktan Arym Kubat
A funny and touching portrait of small-town politics in a rapidly globalizing world that follows Svet-ake, an electrician in a small Kyrgyz village who has been stealing electricity to help the impoverished local residents. When Bekzat, a wealthy land developer and former villager arrives to buy up the land for a group of Chinese investors, Svet-ake shares with him his dream to populate the valley with modern windmills—but soon Svet-ake realizes that not everyone has the best interests of the village community at heart.

Calgary International Film Festival: Buy Tix Online!
Sunday, Oct. 3, 04:45pm - Eau Claire Market - Cineplex Odeon - #2

IN THE WAKE OF THE FLOOD by Ron Mann
Canadian documentary film icon Ron Mann (DREAM TOWER, GRASS, KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS) uses his trademark mix of vérité style intercut with animation and archival film to follow literary superstar Margaret Atwood on her paradigm-shifting book tour for THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD. After decades as an author, Atwood decides to turn the sometimes stuffy and reverential tone of a book tour inside-out by creating a travelling theatrical spectacle in hopes that her literary prophesy of an environmentally compromised world doesn’t become a reality.

To help bring the words off the page, Atwood collaborated with Orville Stoeber to compose a new style of devotional music infused with elements of gospel, jazz, folk and the country ballad—songs which help further turn traditional readings literally on their ear. Mix the excitement of a book tour with the power of theatre and advocacy and you have a film that captures an “old dog” with new tricks.

Calgary International Film Festival: Buy Tix Online!
Thursday, Sep. 30, 07:15pm - Eau Claire Market - Cineplex Odeon - #1

Tags: Calgary International Film Festival

filmswelike are pleased to announce the schedule for 3 great films which will appear at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
The surprise winner of the Palme d'Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, the latest masterpiece from Thai master Apichatpong Weerasethakul—whose previous feature Syndromes and a Century was voted TIFF Cinematheque's #1 film of the past decade—is also the final segment of his multi-platform film/installation project Primitive.


Toronto International Film Festival (North American Premiere)
Sept 16th @ ISABEL BADER THEATRE - 10:30pm (1st Public Screening)
Sept 18th at AMC 5, 9:15am (2nd Public Screening)


THE LIGHT THIEF by Aktan Arym Kubat
A funny and touching portrait of small-town politics in a rapidly globalizing world that follows Svet-ake, an electrician in a small Kyrgyz village who has been stealing electricity to help the impoverished local residents. When Bekzat, a wealthy land developer and former villager arrives to buy up the land for a group of Chinese investors, Svet-ake shares with him his dream to populate the valley with modern windmills—but soon Svet-ake realizes that not everyone has the best interests of the village community at heart.

Toronto International Film Festival
Friday September 10 @ 6:00PM - AMC 4
Saturday September 11 @ 9:30AM - AM AMC 3


I WISH I KNEW by Jia Zhan-Ke
Commissioned to commemorate the 2010 World Expo, this documentary on Shanghai portrays a chapter of modern Chinese history through interviews and scenic views of a city in continuous evolution. I Wish I Knew is directed by one of the youngest masters of cinema, Jia Zhanke.


Toronto International Film Festival
Wednesday September 15 @ 9:45PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4
Friday September 17 @ 5:00PM - JACKMAN HALL - AGO

Tags: Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto, Monday, August 16, 2010

FilmsWeLike, the independent distribution company headed by filmmaker Ron Mann is pleased to announce that the 2010 Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat); I Wish I Knew (Hai Shang Chuan Qi) - the new film from master Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke; The Light Thief (Svet-Aki) a delightful gem from Kyrgyzstan’s Aktan Arym Kubat and Tamra Davis’ Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child will open at the Bell Lightbox this fall.

Opening on Thursday, September 23 at the Bell Lightbox - Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s magical-surrealist film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Boonmee Raluek Chat) - the story of an old man suffering from kidney failure who prepares to die and encounters his dead wife, his missing son (who's been transformed into a laser-eyed monkey ghost) and a princess who has sex with a catfish, took the Palme d’Or at the 63rd Cannes film Festival. Inspired by a book by a Buddhist abbot recording accounts of people who remembered their past lives, the film was shot in Isan, in Thailand’s north-east where Weerasethakul spent his childhood.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is the final installment in a multi-platform art project called Primitive. Previous installments include a seven-part video installation and the two short films A Letter to Uncle Boonmee and Phantoms of Nabua.”

Working outside the strict confines of the Thai studio system, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an independent Thai film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His feature films include Tropical Malady, which won a jury prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Blissfully Yours, which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and Syndromes and a Century, which premiered at the 63rd Venice Film Festival and was the first Thai film to be entered in competition there.

Opening on Thursday, October 7 at the Bell Lightbox is Tamra Davis’ Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child. In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. He became notorious for his graffiti art under the moniker Samo in the late 1970s on the Lower East Side scene, sold his first painting to Deborah Harry for $200, and became best friends with Andy Warhol. Appreciated by both the art cognoscenti and the public, Basquiat was launched into international stardom. However, soon his cult status began to override the art that had made him famous in the first place.

Director Tamra Davis pays homage to her friend in this definitive documentary but also delves into Basquiat as an iconoclast. His dense, bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work emerged while minimalist, conceptual art was the fad; as a successful black artist, he was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions. Much can be gleaned from insider interviews and archival footage, but it is Basquiat's own words and work that powerfully convey the mystique and allure of both the artist and the man.

Opening on Thursday, November 11 at the Bell Lightbox, critically acclaimed Chinese director Jia Zhan-Ke (24 City, Still Life) turns to the history and people of Shanghai in his newest film I Wish I Knew.

Like his last film, 2008's 24 City,, Jia Zhan-Ke’s I Wish I Knew (Hai Shang Chuan Qi), which screened at 2010 Cannes in Un Certain Regard, is a documentary/fiction hybrid about modern-day China. Where 24 City took a personal focus on the citizens of a Chinese town affected by the construction of a high-rise condominium, I Wish I Knew takes a broader view, examining the history of Shanghai as viewed from the present. Jia Zhan-Ke’. Eighteen people from Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong recell their lives in Shanghai. Their personal experiences, like eighteen chapters of a novel, tell stories of Shanghai lives from the 1930s to 2010. Jia Zhan-Ke said “I came to Shanghai with my movie camera and traced the footsteps of Shanghaiers who left this city for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Shanghai is closely tied to the lives of almost every important historic figure in the modern history of China. And events of national significance in the life of the city also destined Shanghaiers for lives of painful, life-long separation. When I sat face-to-face with characters in my film, and listened to them talk every so calmly about the hair raising events in their pasts, I suddenly realized what it was that I captured with my camera: a dream of freedome twinkling in their eyes.”

Opening Thursday, November 18 at the Bell Lightbox is Krygyz filmmaker Aktan Arym Kubat’s third feature, The Light Thief (Svet-ake). Completed before the April 2010 popular uprising against the deeply corrupt regime of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the failures of post-Soviet Kyrgyz democratization come to roost in a remote village in Kubat’s tragi-comic fable. Unfolding in short vignettes The Light Thief is stylistically similar to his earlier works "The Adopted Son" and "The Chimp"

Played by the director, Svet-ake (the film's original title, which literally means "Mr. Light") is the electrician of a remote, impoverished village in the Kyrgyz mountains. The villagers turn to him for help with their constantly short-circuiting electricity (which he often steals for them from the town hall) and personal problems. For his part, the kind, spirited father of four daughters has two dreams: to have a son and to bring cheap, wind-powered energy to the valley.

Although not specified, the film is set in early 2005, during the Tulip Revolution that overthrew the government. There are no demonstrations in Svet-ake's little village, but the changing times are felt nonetheless.

Progress, good and bad, is personified by Bekzat (Askat Sulaimanov), a dubious young tycoon who has returned to his native village looking to buy land and go into business with even shadier Chinese investors. He promises to finance Svet-ake's surprisingly modern windmills if the latter works for him. Initially trusting of Bekzat, the electrician soon realizes that the changes he is bringing go hand in hand with the death of centuries-old traditions.

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Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is available in Toronto for interviews on September 16, 2010

Press kits and images for all 4 films are posted on the FilmsWeLike website:

http://www.filmswelike.com/films/uncleboonmee/
http://www.filmswelike.com/films/basquiat/
http://www.filmswelike.com/films/wish
http://www.filmswelike.com/lightthief

For further information on Uncle Boonmee, I Wish I Knew and The Light Thief please contact:
V Kelly & Associates

For further information on Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child please contact:
Gary Topp

Tags: Bell Lightbox, TIFF