Pablo Stoll's first solo effort in Hiroshima (see pic) since the suicide of co-filmmaker friend Juan Pablo Rebella (together the pair gave us Whisky and 25 Watts), Harmony Korine returns to eating spaghetti in the tub with Trash Humpers, we get a Thailand filmmaker collective in Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat, Kongdej Jaturanrasmee and Pen-ek Ratanaruang in Sawasdee Bangkok and favorite Czeck contemo filmmaker Jan Hrebejk explores sex and marriage with Eastern bloc humor in Shameless.
While Ratanaruang's minimalist essay on being emotionally and sexually frustrated touches upon the theme with few visual strokes, this love triangle between two humans and a tree is so deeply rooted in a non-discourse that whatever intrigue that this film elicits is purely incidentally and accidently.
Starting off the day with QT and his Basterds roster, followed by Nymph from Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, checking out a new pic from Axelle Ropert (La Famille Wolberg) and closing the day and practicing my German with the advance screening of Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon.
Today's announcement for the 2011 Venice Film Festival lineup basically crosses off plenty of sure bets we had been anticipating and makes us circle a bunch of titles we thought had a chance for a 2011 showing but now become hot items for the 2012 campaign. Films such as Juan Diego Solanas' Upside Down, Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot, Brillante Mendoza's Prey look more and more like Cannes 2012 items, while acquisition titles such as Antonio Campos' Simon Killer and Nick Cassavetes' Yellow wouldn't be out of place for a Sundance showing.
With a flurry of titles (from herlmers Kawase, Lanners, Rebecca Daly in the multiple Cannes sections, the future (Venice, and TIFF prospects) look equally as fruitful for Memento Films Int. The French Sales Agent and Prod Co. have a stellar bunch in post production items such from So Yong Kim's and Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's next films (see Headshot pic above), but pre-production items with an eye towards next year's Cannes with Laurent Cantet's and Cate Shortland's next features.