Searchlights off for AWOL star of "The Rocket"

Last Friday's Thai premiere of the Australian movie “The Rocket”, the opener for the World Film Festival of Bangkok, was flawless – almost. The only thing missing was one of its two adolescent stars, Sitthiphon “Ki” Disamoe. The rest of the cast was there, including comedian Thep Pho-ngam and the cute Lao lass Loungnam Kaosainam, along with the Australian director, Kim Mordaunt, and producer Sylvia Wilczynsk.
The movie’s Thai producer, Triphet Rookachat, explained that Ki had been missing from home for two weeks. Best guesses as to his whereabouts include Pattaya and (elsewhere in) Bangkok. The kid from upcountry loves neon.
The last time this happened, he’d scooted off to the big city with his teenage cousins and was finally found in an Internet cafe on Ramkhamhaeng, crashed out after a gaming binge. The previous time he spent a month in Pattaya, doing we don’t want to know what.
Ki’s poor mother raised him as best she could but he does enjoy the hobo life. Half-Thai and half-Lao, he landed the lead role in “The Rocket” after appearing in TV series including “Laungta Maha Chon”. “He knew we were going to have this opening,” said Tripetch. “I think he’ll be afraid we’ll blame him for spoiling the occasion, but that’s just not true.”
Triptech basically adopted Ki after his last adventure and had him staying happily at his place until being obliged to travel to Australia, where he also has citizenship, for two weeks. In the meantime Ki moved back in with his mother. When Tripetch returned, he discovered that the boy had sold an iPad that Wilczynsk gave him and disappeared again with the Bt20,000 take.
His mum reckons he’s back in Pattaya with that no-good cousin again. Tripetch is trying to take the situation as calmly as she does. He said he’d try to contact Ki via Facebook, where the little wanderer sometimes logs in just so his friends can play the games accessible on the site. “We’ll know when the Ki himself is online if he updates his profile, and then we’ll talk to him,” Triptech said hopefully.
All the vanishing acts tie in nicely, if stressfully, with “The Rocket”, in which Ki plays Ahlo, a boy who’s constantly blamed for disasters. He and a spirited orphan (Loungnam) and her eccentric Uncle Purple (Thep) set out to prove he isn’t cursed at all – by building a missile to win the top prize at the Rocket Festival in Laos.
Ki managed to remain present and accounted for long enough to attend the Berlin International Film Festival, where “Rocket” won three awards, and the Sydney Film Festival. He was accounted for but unable to attend the New York’s Tribecca and Denmark’s Buster film fests, at both of which he won the best-actor trophy and cash prizes.
The Australian audience also chipped in scholarship money for both Ki and Loungnam, which producer Wilczynsk had planned to present to them at the Bangkok premiere. At least Loungnam got her share.
Ki probably cares little about schooling by this stage. He’s earned hundreds of thousands of baht from his acting. Tripetch is mulling a trust fund that could bankroll Ki’s studies. Meanwhile the kid’s likely jamming his pocket money into the modern equivalent of a pinball machine.