Time again for 'Mysterious Object at Noon'

APICHATPONG Weerasethakul’s groundbreaking debut feature, the experimental “Mysterious Object at Noon” (“Dokfa Nai Meuman”), has been restored, and is being screened at the 70th Venice International Film Festival, which started on Wednesday.
It’s all thanks to the efforts of the Austrian Film Museum, which believes that a film doesn’t have to be decades and decades old before restoration is undertaken.
“Sometimes, [the film] needs attention as early as 10 to 15 years after its original theatrical release – particularly when it comes from a highly independent production context,” says the museum.
Shot on a shoestring budget, 2000’s “Mysterious Object” is a fascinating road movie, shot in grainy black and white, melding “direct cinema” techniques with a fairytale story that unravels during a cross-country journey down the length of Thailand.
“Shortly after the film’s completion, its original 16mm camera reversal element disappeared,” the Austrian museum notes. Working from a 35mm duplicate negative with burned-in English subtitles, which Apichatpong deposited with the Film Museum for safe-keeping in 2007, the restoration applied digital technology to make the film accessible again. A new 35mm internegative and print were also produced.
Earlier this year, the Austrian Film Museum restored another historic Southeast Asian film, Filipino auteur Lav Diaz’ “Batang West Side” from 2002, which marked a new direction for Diaz and his long-form storytelling and the beginning of Newest Philippine Cinema movement. It was presented at the recent Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.
In Venice, both Apichatpong and Diaz will take part in “70 Directors for Venice 70”, in which directors who made recent history at the festival will offer short films.
Apichatpong’s “Syndromes and a Century” premiered in the Venice in 2006, and he headed the Horizons jury in 2011. Diaz has appeared in Venice many times, with Horizons awards for 2007’s “Death in the Land of Encantos”, 2008’s “Melancholia” and jury duty on 2010’s Horizons panel.
Other directors taking part include Hong Kong’s Peter Chan and the Philippines’ Brillante Mendoza . Other Asian lumaries include Amit Dutta, Hong Sang-soo, Jia Zhangke, Shekhar Kapur, Kim Ki-duk, Sion Sono, Shinya Sakamoto, Bing Wang and Yonfan.
Also in the Venice fest is indie filmmaker Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, who will premiere his Twitter-based experimental drama “Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy” as part of the Venice Biennale College – Cinema project.
The fest runs until September 7.

In the hunt in Busan
Features by Kongdej Jaturanrasamee and Tongpong Chantarangkul are among the selections in this year’s Asian Project Market at the Busan International Film Festival.
Kongdej’s is a followup to last year’s comedy-drama puzzler “P-047” (“Tae Peang Phu Deaw”). The working title is “Kalapalwasan”, or, funnily enough, “P-048”. It’s not really a sequel though. Producer Soros Sukhum says it may share some of the same themes of “identity” as the previous number, as well as Kongdej’s latest effort, the teenage dance drama “Tang Wong”, which opened in cinemas this week.
Tongpong is planning a feature called “The Fireflies”. It follows last year’s critically acclaimed debut “I Carried You Home” (“Padang Besar”), which was supported by the Busan fest’s Asian Cinema Fund.
The two Thais will vie for funding with 28 other projects, which include “Exotic Pictures” by Edwin and “Monkey’s Mask” by Garin Nugroho from Indonesia, and “Samuel Over the Rainbow” by the Philippines’ Benito Bautista.
Also of neighbourly news interest – Cambodian auteur Rithy Panh has been selected as Busan’s Asian Filmmaker of the Year.
Busan also hosts another round of the Ties That Bind funding workshop, which is held in cooperation with the Udine Far East Film Festival. This year’s selection includes “Malaria and Mosquitoes” by Pimpaka Towira. A short-film version of that screened this week at the Thai Short Film and Video Festival and Pimpaka hopes to secure funds to tell more of the story of a young Karen widow and her bid to get a Thai ID card.
The Asian Film Market and the Asian Project Market run from October 7 to 10 as part of the 18th Busan International Film Festival, October 3 to 12.