Success of Thai Films in Market: Who is the distributor?

Cannes - Most distributors of Thai films attended the film market during Cannes Film Festival. Some of them even scored multiple deals there. But the real success depends on who are the distributors.

This year witnessed a large Thai contingent, which included local production studios like Five Star Production, GTH, RS Film, CM Film, Mangpong, and Mono Film, as well as foreign distributors of Thai films such as the Netherlands’ Fortissimo, the U.S.’s Universal Entertainment, China’s Han Media Culture, Hong Kong’s Golden Network Asia, and France’s Alanys Film. As part of the effort to land distribution deals, these companies screened Thai films at Cannes. GTH showed The Shutter. RS Film showed The Necromancer and Sagai United. Mangpong showed Rahtree Returns. CM Film Happy Inn and Nanacha: Wily Child. Fortissimo showed The Eye Infinity. Golden Network Asia showed Seven Street2, The Hitman File, and trailers of upcoming

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Prachya Pinkaew’s Tom Yum Goong, Bandit Thongdee’s The Mercury Man, Manop Udomdej’s Boa, and Universal Entertainment showed Oxide and Danny Pang’s Recycle.

In addition, a French film shot in Thailand was also screened at Cannes. Chok-Dee (literally means “lucky”) was adapted from a true story of a French orphan who fell in love with the martial arts of Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing). It also starred a number of Thai actors, including Florence Vanida Faivre, Sombat Metanee, Rit Luecha, and real-life Muay Thai boxer Charoenthong Kiatbanchong.

Needless to say, Thailand’s film industry was well represented in this year’s Cannes film market. Some of the attending companies landed distribution deals there.

CM Film, for example, sold two of its films to international distributors.

“Most buyers asked for The Brutal River, which we sold to Japan, Germany, and the United States despite its current status in post-production. Our other film, Nanacha: Wily Child, was sold to Canada,” said Nukul Sukthaworn of CM Film. He also revealed that the company had almost dropped its intention to sell The Brutal River because the film could not be finished in time.

Other successful deals were included in the following table. It seemed that foreign distributors of Thai films scored more deals than Thai production studios. Also possible was the fact that foreign distributors were savvier at releasing sales information than their Thai counterparts.