Five Stills From Wisit Sasanatieng's NORASINGHAVATAR

I'm told that an announcement of a new feature film from beloved (by me, at least) Thai director Wisit Sasanatieng of Tears of the Black Tiger fame will be coming at the upcoming AFM - all I know is that it's set in the 1970's, will star Ananda Everingham and is neither Armful nor Namprix - but while we're waiting for that we've gotten hold of five stills from a brand new short film from Sasanatieng to share. Titled Norasinghavatar the film was commissioned as part of a series that also includes new work by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul to celebrate the eightieth birthday of Thailand's king and is based on myths surrounding one of the ten reincarnations of Lord Visanhu. Something to bear in mind looking at these, and one of the things I love about Sasanatieng's work: you're going to think these are CGI. They're not. He did this all live action, then heavily processed the film in post. Nice.

Now, speaking of Sasanatieng feature films, will someone please step up to the plate with financing for Armful? I mean, come on ... Namprix is supposedly being funded by Europacorp, who are dragging their feet for some undisclosed reason, but Armful, near as I can tell, is being stalled out purely by a lack of investment. It's a 70's set, one armed, martial arts revenge film from one of the most impressive visual talents on the planet! Get with it, people! It'll be cheap to make and really, really damn cool. Give the man some money.