We first wrote about Primitive - a new multimedia gallery installation from Tropical Malady director Apichatpong Weerasethakul - a good while back and today one of the major segments of that project, a short film titled Phantoms of Nabua, goes online at the Animate Projects website. Here are some details:
Primitive will be shot in the border town, Nabua, where the Mekong River divides Thailand and Laos, an area with a long history of racial migration and slaughter. It was also a 'red zone' where the Mao-influenced Communist party moved into the mountain range and the Thai government targeted local communities as communist sympathisers. Nabua has an ancient legend about a widow ghost who would abduct any man who enters her empire.The Primitive project re-imagines Nabua, the ‘widow town’, as a town of men, freed from the widow ghost’s empire, and features the male descendants of the farmer communists - teenagers that will lead a journey, fabricate memories, and build a dreamscape in the jungle.
I'm not certain how long this will be available online so get moving!