Phuket Film Festival on again
With all the comparisons with Cannes, can we expect the Phuket Film Festival to attract startlets posing for the cameras? - Photo by Eric D
Apparently undaunted by the way the 2009 Phuket Film Festival fizzled out, organiser Scott Rosenberg is gearing up for another go at it, and has issued a call for entries for the 2010 event.
The first festival was in 2007, with the second due to have been in June last year. That collapsed when the Thai government decided to host an Asean summit in Phuket with massive security to counter any attempts by the opposition Red Shirts to disrupt the summit.
This, Rosenberg said, scared off some of the big names – and with them the money, so he decided to cancel the festival. Minutes after he sent out the cancellation notice, the summit was postponed to October. Rosenberg says his company lost a million baht as a result and denied that the real reason for the cancellation was ongoing financial woes. (See earlier story here.)
Thai politics have calmed down a bit since then, and so far no summit meetings are planned for Phuket between June 4 and 13, the scheduled dates of this year’s festival.
Rosenberg commented “The [Cannes International Film Festival] had a rocky 3-4 year start and while we don’t want to emulate them, we sure do want to grow up to be like them.”
True. The first Cannes festival was supposed to be in 1939 but the occupation of much of France by Germany proved a bit of an obstacle. The Cannes festival was not revived until 1946. The following year a storm blew the roof off the purpose-built festival venue.
“The 2010 [Phuket] Festival expects to screen about 30 – 40 films with a People’s Choice Awards held for selected films,” Rosenberg’s company announced.
“This year the Phuket Film Festival is partnering with B-Side, an international web-based protocol for previewing Festival films and measuring audience reaction to the films. B-Side also allows film makers not only local Festival reach for their films but international exposure as well.”
Films may be entered for the festival by going to here or by emailing the organisers. The deadline for submissions is April 30. A demo of the B-Side system can be seen here.
