EXCLUSIVE: Thai sales company Diversion is ramping up its production slate with a trio of titles supported by the new Thai film fund launched through the Thailand Creative Culture Agency (THACCA).
Venice-winning director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s latest film The Burning Giants, now in production on the Thai-Myanmar border, is about an ethnic Karen man with bizarre burn marks all over this body, who is captured by the Thai authorities and sent to a quarantine facility by a patrol unit from the Thai forestry department.
The project is established as a co-production with Singapore’s 13 Little Pictures, France’s Nord-Ouest and Sluizer Film Productions from the Netherlands. Phuttiphong’s previous works include Manta Ray, winner of Venice’s Orizzonti best film award, and 2023 Busan selection Morrison.
Two further projects from Diversion are in development. Drive South Pray West from directors Panu Aree and Kong Rithdee follows a young man haunted by his brother’s death at the hands of the military who must choose between the solace of poetry and the path of rebellion.
It is set in Thailand’s deep south, like the directing duo’s previous film The Cursed Land, which premiered at last year’s Rotterdam. It recently won an IDP award at HAF in Hong Kong.
The Funeral, the latest documentary feature by Uruphong Raksasad, will be shot in the north of Thailand and questions the role that funeral traditions play in the lives of people living in the Thai countryside. Uruphong’s 2021 documentary Worship was produced by Diversion.
The new Thai film fund is injecting $6.4m (THB220m) into the industry, with 86 film and series projects among the recipients. It is the first substantial state grants to films since 2010 and a surge in films coming out of Thailand over the next few years is anticipated.
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