'the Elephant King' Charity Premiere

[wayfarer108]

'The Elephant King' Charity Premiere

Host: DeWarrenne Pictures

In support of the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Cocktail reception: 5-8pm

Screening: 8-10pm

Location:

Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada

5th Floor, The BSC Lounge

Ratchadaphisek Rd

(Metro: Thailand Cultural Centre)

Tel: 08 6958 1212

DeWarrenne Pictures (Butterfly Man, Bittersweet, Soi Cowboy), in cooperation with Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE), is hosting a charity premiere of the feature film The Elephant King starring Florence Vanida Faivre, Bank Pawalit, and award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn.

Food & alcoholic beverages will be served throughout the cocktail reception. Also during the reception there will be a charity auction of paintings by local celebrities. All proceeds from art sales will be donated to the FAE at the end of event. For more

information about FAE see http://www.elephant-soraida.com/

Celebrity painters contributing their work and attending the event include Florence Vanida Faivre (Actress, Model), Titanium (Thailand's most famous Hip-Hop band), Suraphan Chaopaknaam (Actor, Model), Bank Pawalit Mongkolpisith (Actor, Model, Singer), Jeed Sangthong Kate U-Thong (Actress, Model), Tata Young* (Singer-Super Star, Model, Actress; *unable to attend)

Following the reception there will be a special charity screening for The Elephant King. The film has won several prestigious international awards including Official Selection at Tribeca Int'l Film Festival (USA), Official Selection at Cambridge Int'l Film Festival (UK), Best Film at Oxford Film Festival (UK), Best Film at Sacramento Int'l Film Festival (USA), Best Film at Lone Star Film Festival (USA), Best Actor at Brooklyn Int'l Film Festival (USA).

The Elephant King stars Tate Ellington, Jonno Roberts, Florence Faivre, Ellen Burstyn and Bank Pawalit Mongkolpisit (from the original Bangkok Dangerous).

Written and directed by Seth Grossmanm the film explores the twisted symbiosis between two American brothers--one domineering and nihilistic, the other guileless and introspective--as they binge on drink, drugs, and women in an exotic land. A domineering mother dispatches her young, introverted son Oliver off to Thailand to do everything he can to lure his reckless, older brother back home to the U.S. to face pending fraud charges. Oliver finds the intoxication of Thailand hard to resist, especially when it has a face as alluring as Lek's. As Oliver falls deeply in love for the first time, Jake slips deeper into despair, and the seams of their relationship begin to come undone. When the true extent of Jake's decadence and self-destruction is revealed to Oliver, he is forced to decide whether he will save his brother's life or his own.

A minimum donation of THB 200 is requested to support the FAE foundation. Media and celebrity guests are invited to watch the movie on this night at 8pm.

[girlx]

saw the preview for this, looks pretty good

[mjperry]

Looks good, how do we blag a ticket then?

'The Elephant King' Charity Premiere

Host: DeWarrenne Pictures

In support of the Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Cocktail reception: 5-8pm

Screening: 8-10pm

Location:

Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada

5th Floor, The BSC Lounge

Ratchadaphisek Rd

(Metro: Thailand Cultural Centre)

Tel: 08 6958 1212

DeWarrenne Pictures (Butterfly Man, Bittersweet, Soi Cowboy), in cooperation with Friends of the Asian Elephant (FAE), is hosting a charity premiere of the feature film The Elephant King starring Florence Vanida Faivre, Bank Pawalit, and award-winning actress Ellen Burstyn.

Food & alcoholic beverages will be served throughout the cocktail reception. Also during the reception there will be a charity auction of paintings by local celebrities. All proceeds from art sales will be donated to the FAE at the end of event. For more

information about FAE see http://www.elephant-soraida.com/

Celebrity painters contributing their work and attending the event include Florence Vanida Faivre (Actress, Model), Titanium (Thailand's most famous Hip-Hop band), Suraphan Chaopaknaam (Actor, Model), Bank Pawalit Mongkolpisith (Actor, Model, Singer), Jeed Sangthong Kate U-Thong (Actress, Model), Tata Young* (Singer-Super Star, Model, Actress; *unable to attend)

Following the reception there will be a special charity screening for The Elephant King. The film has won several prestigious international awards including Official Selection at Tribeca Int'l Film Festival (USA), Official Selection at Cambridge Int'l Film Festival (UK), Best Film at Oxford Film Festival (UK), Best Film at Sacramento Int'l Film Festival (USA), Best Film at Lone Star Film Festival (USA), Best Actor at Brooklyn Int'l Film Festival (USA).

The Elephant King stars Tate Ellington, Jonno Roberts, Florence Faivre, Ellen Burstyn and Bank Pawalit Mongkolpisit (from the original Bangkok Dangerous).

Written and directed by Seth Grossmanm the film explores the twisted symbiosis between two American brothers--one domineering and nihilistic, the other guileless and introspective--as they binge on drink, drugs, and women in an exotic land. A domineering mother dispatches her young, introverted son Oliver off to Thailand to do everything he can to lure his reckless, older brother back home to the U.S. to face pending fraud charges. Oliver finds the intoxication of Thailand hard to resist, especially when it has a face as alluring as Lek's. As Oliver falls deeply in love for the first time, Jake slips deeper into despair, and the seams of their relationship begin to come undone. When the true extent of Jake's decadence and self-destruction is revealed to Oliver, he is forced to decide whether he will save his brother's life or his own.

A minimum donation of THB 200 is requested to support the FAE foundation. Media and celebrity guests are invited to watch the movie on this night at 8pm.

[wayfarer108]

You can buy a ticket at Esplanade Cineplex, the 8pm premiere is open to the public. It opens for its regular showing on Thursday, various showtimes I guess.

[jcon]

are you in 'the biz' wayfarer?

[BFD]

I'm actually in this movie, so I've been pretty pumped to see it for a long time now! I'm in a muay thai scene that was filmed in Chiangmai. I'm a drunk dude in a red shirt (wasn't much of a stretch for me to act) and I ask Florence for "one more Singha" as she stands behind the bar. She was a super cool girl and it was tons of fun being in a production like this. The free beer helped, I'm sure...

BFD!

[girlx]

did anyone see this yesterday? how was it? i might go watch it tomorrow...

[bonobo]

I would like to know if anyone has seen it yet and can give their opinion on it, too.  I fly in the morning for a trade show in the US, and as I like to stay awake the night before I leave, taking in the movie would be good.  However, my Thai friend has expressed a disinterest in seeing it feeling that it may portray Thailand in a less-than-favorable light.

[sabaijai]

I would like to know if anyone has seen it yet and can give their opinion on it, too.  I fly in the morning for a trade show in the US, and as I like to stay awake the night before I leave, taking in the movie would be good.  However, my Thai friend has expressed a disinterest in seeing it feeling that it may portray Thailand in a less-than-favorable light.

I attended the premiere last night. It was packed, leaving a few people sitting in the aisles. Most of the audience were Thai, and they laughed in the appropriate places and applauded loudly at the end so I'd say most liked it. To my mind it didn't portray Thailand in a negative light, in fact I'd say the locals come out looking better than the farang characters overall (esp relative to, say, The Beach) altho overall it's relatively balanced in the way it sees good and bad in both expats and the locals.

One point worth noting, from the Thai perspective, is that the Thai subtitles were better than average. Whoever did them understood the English script well.

[bonobo]

I would like to know if anyone has seen it yet and can give their opinion on it, too.  I fly in the morning for a trade show in the US, and as I like to stay awake the night before I leave, taking in the movie would be good.  However, my Thai friend has expressed a disinterest in seeing it feeling that it may portray Thailand in a less-than-favorable light.

I attended the premiere last night. It was packed, leaving a few people sitting in the aisles. Most of the audience were Thai, and they laughed in the appropriate places and applauded loudly at the end so I'd say most liked it. To my mind it didn't portray Thailand in a negative light, in fact I'd say the locals come out looking better than the farang characters overall (esp relative to, say, The Beach) altho overall it's relatively balanced in the way it sees good and bad in both expats and the locals.

One point worth noting, from the Thai perspective, is that the Thai subtitles were better than average. Whoever did them understood the English script well.

Thanks!

[wayfarer108]

are you in 'the biz' wayfarer?

No, just a film fan

[BFD]

I saw it last night and was pleasantly surprised. My girlfriend was less than pleased in how it portrayed her home country, however. Apparently, she had seen an interview with Florence Faivre before the movie, in which Florence explained that Thailand is shown in a completely positive light. She went on to say that this is the 'real' Thailand and everyone should come to see the movie to experience how beautiful Thailand is. My girlfriend, while she didn't hate the movie in and of itself, found these comments to be particularly offensive. I must explain that she's a fairly inexperienced girl, who has been exposed only tangentially to the seedier aspects of Thai life (the reason why I care for her so much, perhaps). Her rose-colored glasses couldn't cope with the stark realism the movie portrays.

And it IS realistic. Many westerners come to Thailand to run away from various responsibilities and the movie shows just how easy it is to fall into that world. hel_l, one walk down beach road in Pattaya will show you just how 'zombie-like' foreigners can become here. Of the two brothers in the film, Jake is a wonderfully constructed character. You're definitely not supposed to like him, and Jonno Roberts pulls that off well. Ellen Burstyn is good as the doting old mother, and Tate Ellington plays a passable depressed New Yorker.

For the negatives, Seth Grossman (director) seems to spend about 25% of the film showing us montage scenes of 'life in Thailand'. This mainly seems to focus on tuk-tuk rides and open-air markets. While I understand that the vast majority of audiences won't be familiar with the setting as intimately as us expats are, for a 92 minute film you need to keep the 'atmosphere' shots to a bit of a minimum. Florence Faivre mails in a cardboard performance in badly accented 'Tinglish'. While she's obviously a looker, the voice-acting just didn't do it for me. While the film was often touted as being the vehicle for Diego Quemada-Diez's cinematographic genius, I didn't find it to be too revolutionary (or anything Darren Aronofsky hasn't done better). The most negative thing of all, however, is that they cut MY scene down to about one second! Two days of shooting (and drinking) and I'm on screen for an inaudible 'thank you' when Flo hands me a Singha. Tough business, show business!

All in all, I recommend this movie as one to generate a bit of discussion between Thais and foreigners. As some mentioned before, no one really comes out as 'the good guy' here, and that's a pretty realistic depiction of the human condition.

BFD!

[Groongthep]

I did not attend the premier but did go see the movie yesterday at 1310 at the Major Cineplex in Ekamai. I was literally the ONLY person in the theater so getting a good seat was certainly easy. It was the best film concerning Thailand that I have ever seen. I highly recommend it.

[sabaijai]

Currently showing at EGV Esplanade, Paragon Cineplex, Major Sukhumit Ekamai, Major Ratchayothin, Major Pinklao, Major Chiang Mai and Pattaya according to www.movieseer.com.

[girlx]

this film was nothing special. wasn't especially complimentary to thai females. very depressing. hit farang stereotypes right on the head though.

[Groongthep]

this film was nothing special. wasn't especially complimentary to thai females. very depressing. hit farang stereotypes right on the head though.

Interesting comment. Are you referring to the stereotypes farangs have of Thais or the stereotypes farangs who have never lived in Thailand have of the farangs who do? The only character which seemed over stereotypical to me was the father of the two brothers who was oblivious to his son(s) real circumstances and assumed that they were having the greatest time of their lives in Thailand when if fact they were self-destructing. I agree the character of Lek was not particularly complimentary to Thai females but it does unfortunately reflect a very believable (and all too common) scenario. It would have been more politically correct I guess to have written a character into the script that depicted a happy and successful young Thai woman that would have balanced out the shortcomings of the character of Lek, but how they would have done that without further straying from the main story which was about the relationships within the farang family would have been difficult.

Yes, the story was somewhat depressing but I found the reality and plausibility of it actually a refreshing change from the contrived Ong-Bak, The Beach, Bangkok Dangerous (the new one), City of Ghosts, Anna and the King, Soi Cowboy and the myriad of old Viet Nam war movies that westerners have shot here before. No, it's not "Best Picture of the Year'" material but it's still the best film made by westerners concerning Thailand that I have yet to see.