The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) has announced six Thai works from rising filmmakers for this year’s Project Spotlight in the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF).

PiFan’s Project Spotlight takes a different Asian country each year to focus on selected genre film projects.

The seventh edition of NAFF lauds Thailand as recently “running strong with its genre films of unique subject matters and techniques” and the filmmakers for the six selected projects as up-and-coming on the international stage.

Off his recent film Hong Hun featuring Ananda Everingham, Kulp Kaljareuk will bring mystery thriller Fallen Thailand as his next feature, with Nattaporn Kaljareuk producing. With shades of political commentary, the story is set in 2035 and features a Thai boxer battling zombies in a quarantined hospital to save his wife, a nurse, and help a lost child find his mother.

Director Nuttorn Kungwanklai, whose horror omnibus 9-9-81 screened at last year’s Udine Far East Film Festival, will bring Jam-Nien: The 300 Years Ghost. Producers Soros Sukhum, Donsaron Kovitvanitcha and Cattleya Paosrijareon are on board for this story of a ghost killed by a vengeful queen and trapped in reincarnation limbo.

For his directorial debut, Solarsin Ngoenwichit, who has worked in the US and Thailand as art director and special effects supervisor, will bring Panang - The Monster Within. He is self-producing the supernatural intestine-eating monster mystery set in a seaside town.

Lertsiri Boonmee, whose credits include directing the short The Other Half and co-directing the TV film Lost, will bring the supernatural mystery SLR to the project market. SLR features a photographer who comes into an antique camera that exacts a horrific price for making its subjects beautiful and its owner powerful. Vutichai Wongnophadol and Veerapat Keeratiwuttikul are producing.

Director Paul Spurrier and producer Piyawat Dangdej, whose Thai ghost film P screened at PiFan and Edinburgh, are re-teaming with psychological thriller The Penthouse. Touching on social issues, the project features a banker who invites desperate girls up to his penthouse and offers them money to solve their problems – medical bills, lost family land, a baby’s life - on the condition they let him kill them.

A 25-year veteran producer who started out as an assistant set dresser on The Killing Fields, Pakinee Chaisana will be presenting Love Me Love Me Not as a director. The suspense drama follows four individuals whose lives become intertwined after a chance meeting. The project is produced by Thidarat Pakchanakorn and A Grand Elephant Production.

The Thai project filmmakers will have business meetings with potential investors and co-producers as well as pitch their projects in a Spotlight presentation. They will also be in the running with the 21 It Project selections for cash and post-production support awards.

NAFF runs July 20-23 with the awards ceremony on the last night. PiFan runs July 17-27. 

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