Regretfully At Dawn

Source: Extra Virgin / E&W Films

‘Regretfully At Dawn’

Thai sales company Diversion has acquired worldwide rights to Sivaroj Kongsakul’s Regretfully At Dawn, which is set to premiere in the New Directors competition of the upcoming San Sebastian Film Festival.

It marks the second feature of Thai filmmaker Sivaroj, whose 2010 debut Eternity won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam as well as top prizes at Hong Kong International Film Festival and Deauville Asian Film Festival.

Regretfully At Dawn follows a war veteran nearing the end of his life and his bright young niece who has a promising future ahead of her. They live quietly in a small province outside Bangkok with an enigmatic black dog until a young soldier from the past turns up. A first look at the film can be seen above.

The Thailand-Singapore collaboration is produced by Extra Virgin’s Pimpaka Towira and co-produced by E&W Films’ Lai Weijie, with a production grant from Thailand’s Ministry of Culture and the Southeast Asia co-production grant from Singapore Film Commission.

Pimpaka’s recent producer credits include Agrarian Utopia and The Songs Of Rice, both directed by Uruphong Raksasad. She also served as programme director at Singapore International Film Festival from 2017-2019.

Lai’s most recent credits include Mongrel, which received a Camera d’Or special mention when it played in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in May, and Viet And Nam, which also premiered at this year’s Cannes in Un Certain Regard.

Executive producer is Chayamporn Taeratanachai from Cinema 22, who previously backed Berlinale-winning Vietnamese feature Taste and Oscar-shortlisted Bhutanese film The Monk And The Gun.

Filmmaker Sivaroj also directed one segment of 2015 anthology film Distance, produced by Anthony Chen, and has been more active in drama series over the last decade, with the latest Master Of The House set to debut on Netflix tomorrow (July 18).