THAI SHORT FILM, TO SCREEN AT SOHO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
First film of three Bangkok-based,multi-national film actors, who start new film company
A Thai Short Film ‘CLUELESS’ has been selected for the Soho International Film Festival in New York, where it will be screened on Friday 16 May ,followed by the American feature film ‘Growing Up and Other Lies’ ,starring Adam Brody.
Most excited are the three Bangkok-based film artistes ,Poo Sahajak Boonthanakit, Byron Bishop, Peter Lloyd, who contributed to making the film, and who will be flying to New York for the film-screening.
The only Thai among them, is actor Poo Sahajak Boonthanakit, who lived in New York for many years, before he moved back to Thailand in 1996.
Since then, he has acted in more than 40 international productions that were shot in the country,starting with ‘The Beach’, various others like 'Beyond Borders, Trade of Innocents, The Lady' , not to forget ‘Only God Forgives’, last year, and ‘The Coup’, this year .
Sahajak’s brother was a story- board artist in LA for nearly two decades, but he said that he opted not to live in LA but in Bangkok, because “ I would have been just a tadpole there, whereas I’m a fairly big fish, in a fairly big pond here!”
The actor said he totally enjoyed acting in ‘Clueless’, the first film of the trio’s new company ‘Keynok Productions’. The film was shot in just two days, at the lush locales of Nakhon Nayok , within a modest a budget of 21000 baht ( $ 700) .
“We’re proud of the beautiful shots and locales, as our chief aim was to promote Thailand” said Poo, during the recent Thailand International Film Destination Festival at Bangkok, where all the films screened, were shot in Thailand. Sahajak acted in five of the movies, assaying a wide array of roles with confidence and flair.
Byron Bishop is half American-Japanese, who lived in LA many years, before moving to Bangkok, to marry super-model Cyndy .He was a model too, and also did music videos and TV commercials, before he moved to films. He was part of the Thai cast of Cannes Competition film ‘Only God Forgives’ ,which he calls “ a great experience.”
Byron directed and acted in ‘Clueless’. He does not speak a word in the film, but shows an ease and dynamism with his role, which surprised even him.
“ It was amazing having a vision in my head and then seeing it manifest itself” he exclaimed.
Peter Lloyd graduated in law from Oxford, had a successful barrister career in London, before he bought a diamond mine in Tanzania which went bust, and eventually moved to Thailand. In between, he relished being a bass-player, writing books on Vietnam, and creating numerous scripts. Infact, he has two completed scripts ready, which his two friends are trying to get funds for, through the on-line fund-raising campaign ‘Kickstarter.’
According to him ‘Clueless’ has been “ transformational’ for them, as “ it has established our credibility as writers, directors and producers. “ Peter plays a pivotal role in the film ,in addition to writing the script .After all, it was a home production, where all of them had to chip in as much as possible. That’s why Byron’s and Sahajak’s wives both have roles in the film.
The trio said that they were totally diverse personalities, but they had the same “vision and objectives.”
Their main vision was to make good films, set in Thailand, spoken in English, for the international market.
“We can combine our talents to produce high quality material, through our company, ‘Keynok Productions’ ,and we are looking forward to that” they stated.
‘CLUELESS’ will be screened at the Village East Cinema, at 189 Second Avenue (12th Street), on 16 May, at 7-15 pm.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/growing-up-other-lies-clueless-soho-film-festival-tickets-11398203333
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From Left- Byron Bishop, Poo Sahajak, Peter Lloyd
13.05.2014 | LEKHA SHANKAR's blog