Movies - Wisit Sasanatieng

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	Movies - Wisit Sasanatieng

Wisit Sasanatieng (Thai วิศิษฏ์ ศาสนเที่ยง, born April 25, 1964 in Bangkok, Thailand) is a Thai film director and screenwriter. Best known for his colourful debut feature film, Tears of the Black Tiger, he is among a "New Wave" of Thai directors that include Nonzee Nimibutr, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Biography

Early career

Wisit studied at the Faculty of Decorative Arts at Silpakorn University, where he was a classmate of Nonzee Nimibutr and set designer Ek Lemchuen.

He started out as an art director at the Film Factory, where he worked with Pen-Ek Ratanaraung. Among television commercials directed by Wisit was a colorful commercial for Wrangler Jeans that featured Black Tiger star Chartchai Ngamsuan. Wisit continues to work at Film Factory, making commercials, in order to supplement his income in between making feature films.

Wisit entered the film industry as a screenwriter for two of Nonzee's films, 1997's Dang Bireley’s and the Young Gangsters, set in 1950s Thailand, and the ghost thriller, Nang Nak
in 1999. Critically, and at the box office, the films were successes and marked the beginning of a "new wave" movement in the Thai film industry.

Debut feature

Wisit's feature-film debut was in 2000 with the colourfully audacious Tears of the Black Tiger, a genre-blending western. With a romantic melodrama at its core, the story involves outlaws, gunfights, horseback riding, comedic bits and big explosions. The film was an homage to an earlier era of Thai film -- the contemplative 1950s dramas of pioneering director Rattana Pestonji as well as the "bomb-the-mountains, burn-the-huts" action films of the 1960s that starred Mitr Chaibancha. Indeed, one of the leading men from the 1960s and 1970s Thai action-film era, Sombat Metanee, lent his talents to Tears of the Black Tiger, portraying the outlaw leader, Fai.

Tears of the Black Tiger was the first Thai film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition, in the "en certain regard" section). At the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2000, it won the Dragons & Tigers Award for best new director. Other awards include best art direction at the Gijon Film Festival in 2001 and a jury prize at the Puchon International Film Festival. It was also screened at the 2006 Bangkok International Film Festival as part of a tribute to Sombat Metanee.

US distribution rights for the film were purchased by Miramax Films. A company that has since become notorious for its disrespectful handling of Asian films, Miramax changed the ending to a happier outcome and then shelved the film indefinitely. Though the film is available on DVD, it has yet to be screened theatrically in the US.

Second film

Meanwhile, Wisit started working on his next project, Citizen Dog, a contemporary romantic comedy set in Bankgok that proved to be even more colourful than Tears of the Black Tiger. Based on a novel written by Siripan Techajindawong, Wisit's longtime collaborative partner and wife, and narrated by fellow Thai filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, Citizen Dog tells the tale of two rural Thais who come to Bangkok to find work and fall in love. Critics have compared it to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie.

Distribution rights outside Asia were purchased by Luc Besson's EuropaCorp., and it has played at several film festivals, including the Berlin Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Next projects

In addition to distributing Citizen Dog, EuropaCorp. also has agreed to finance Wisit's third film, a long-gestating project called Nam Prix, which takes its name after red chillis used in Thai cooking. A historical fantasy about Thai pirates, the project began in 1998 as a one-page brief, but was shelved due to financial difficulties.

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