ananda everingham Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Laotian government has apparently financed a romantic story set in Luang Prabang, a small city (population 22,000) located on the Mekong River in the north central region of the country. The film is entitled Sabaidee Luang Prabang (Good Morning, Luang Prabang) and stars Ananda Everingham "as a Lao-Australian photographer who returns to his father's home country of Laos," according to Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal. He "gets in touch with his heritage during a trip that takes him the length of the country. Along [the] way, he bonds and falls in love with his female guide, played by Laotian beauty queen Khamlek Pallawong."

Good Morning, Luang Prabang is a Laotian-Thai co-production and is the first feature film from Laos in nearly 20 years. Wise Kwai, a Bangkok-based journalist, says that the so-called "film industry" in Laos has been limited primarily to producing made-for-television features and state-controlled propaganda videos since 1988. The media is still under strict control of the government.

Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has had an interesting life in film. After spending the late 70's and early 80's studying and working in New York, he went back to Bangkok and began to work at the Film Factory. Over a decade later, he wrapped up his debut feature film in 1997, the karaoke mob story Fun Bar Karaoke. Since then, he's had a myriad of nominations and wins at film festivals, including a Don Quixote win in 2000 for crime comedy 6IXTYNIN9 and a Golden Bear nomination last year for Invisible Waves, which is about a murdering chef. With that wrapped, indieWIRE has shared news of his latest project, Ploy.

Thailand's Five Star Production is teaming with Fortissimo Films for the new feature which is described as an "erotic film (that) attempts to explore jealousy and its origins in a serious, exotic yet playful way, evaluating the theme by employing three characters and one location." In other words, a threesome movie where some or all of the players get jealous while all of them are, I don't know, living together? Sounds like the Thai version of Greg Araki's Splendor to me. The movie will re-team the director with Lalita Panyopas, who was also in 6IXTYNIN9, and have her starring with Ananda Everingham. There is no word on the third erotic participant. Considering the mobishness and murder of his previous films, I don't think this three-way is going to end with just jealousy.