Chris Blackwell's PalmPictures has acquired all North American and Caribbean rights to Pen-ekRatanaruang's Venice and Toronto hit Last Life In The Universe from Thailand.

The film, which isThailand's official entry to the foreign language film Academy Award, will bereleased in summer 2004 by Palm. It stars Japanese superstar Asano Tadanobu,who won the best actor prize in Upstream Competition at Venice last month, as amysterious librarian who has hidden himself away from society and is bent onsuicide until he meets a beautiful young woman who seduces him back to life.

Produced by Nonzee Nimibutr,Duangkamol Limcharoen and Wouter Barendrecht, the film was sold to Palm byBarendrecht's Fortissimo Film Sales. Palm's head of acquisitions and productionDavid Koh closed the deal with Barendrecht and Fortissimo's director ofinternational sales Winnie Lau at the recent Filmart in Hong Kong.