The four Thai films Pattaya Maniac, Art of Devil, Zee-Oui, and Born to Fight received mixed responses from the audience and critics in this yearr’s Far East Film Festival in Italy.

The 7th Annual Far East Film Festival took place at Udine, a small town located two hours by train from Venice. The films that screened here tended to be more mainstreamed than artistic. As such, the audience usually voted or the festival’s only Popular awards.

The general consensus considered Pattaya Maniac by Yutthalert Lippapark as the best of the lot, even though Max Tessier, a French film critic with expertise in Asian films, personally admitted to me that he preferred the director’s first installment of Flower of the Night (2003). After screening, organizers of an American film festival approached me for contact information of GTH, the film’s

distributor. This was good news because Pattaya Maniac almost failed to make to Udine because GTH had initially refused to cooperate with this festival’s organizers and decided not to submit commercial films like The Shutter (2004) and M.A.I.D. (2004). In the end, the director personally requested GTH to screen it at Udine because his films had always been invited. While Udine cannot match Cannes in popularity, the Far East Film Festival was among the few European events that promoted Asian films and attracted a large number of foreign press.

Surprisingly, Art of Devil by Thanit Jitnukul won loud applauses from the audience. In contrast, my British friend, who attended the screening on my behalf, greatly disliked the film because it seemed to have nothing but sex scenes and migraine-inducing editing. He even instructed me not to report that viewers here loved this movie for fearing that Thai companies would produce more movies of this kind. However, as member of the press, I felt compelled to report it.

Zee-Oui was greeted with an average response, but one French author seemed to be quite fond of it and sought to meet me. Unfortunately, our paths did not cross. As for Born to Fight, I missed its screening at Udine but was informed that it had fared well, especially among comedy and action film enthusiasts.