A Quick Trip to Bangkok

Scenes from a Bangkok premier of METROSEXUAL

I make a quick trip to Bangkok to watch some movies. I don't know Thai cinema. I know some of the early films by Restan Pestonji - one of the greats. And I recently learned of the work of Euthana Mukdasanit - generally unrecognized. He made two musicals in the 1970s, ambitious constructions inspired by a re-reading of Hollywood. Today he is back in theater, running an acting workshop in the tradition of Stella Adler et al. A great force in Thai theater (he staged "Kiss of the Spider Woman" in Thai) and cinema, he is yet to be confirmed as one of the masters of cinema. I go to his theater and interview him for CINEPOD. More on him later.

With filmmaker Jim Shum, I go to the premier of a new film METROSEXUAL, a comedy about a gay guy that is a sharp commentary on contemporary Thai society. The premier takes place in a shopping mall somewhere in Bangkok. Neither Jim nor I speak Thai so we struggle with the taxi driver as we cruise up and down long roads. We make it in time for the opening ceremony and catch director Yongyoot. He's a bouncy filmmaker, probably best known in the US for IRON LADIES, a movie about transvestite ball players. The permier is buzzing and crowded with a mixture of fans, onlookers, shoppers and just plain curious - and Jim and I who wander among the Thai crowd - the only non-Thai media in this completely local event. The film is good, and the experience is unbeatable.

Coming up on CINEPOD

We have been working on the new episodes.

Look out for :

The Blossoming of Filipino Indies


"THE BLOSSOMING OF MAXIMO OLIVEROS" is the most successful Filipino indie film ever made. It has won prizes at international film festivals including Berlin. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and opened in the US on September 22.

Reviews have been glowing.

"The story revolves around a young boy's spiritual -- rather than sexual -- coming-of-age. Eleven-year-old Maximo, who is already out and proud, hustles a living on the street life with his father, a small time gang boss, and his two cheerful brothers. Manila's streets are rife with police corruption, so everyone's taken aback by the arrival of Victor, a clean-cut and principled cop. Maximo immediately develops a crush on Victor, who befriends the boy. But a police crackdown brings Victor into conflict with Maximo's criminal father. "Blossoming" doesn't concern itself with the child's sexuality. It wholeheartedly accepts his sexual orientation from the start, then gets on with the story. As with many Filipino films, it is mainly concerned with family relationships and how these are unexpectedly destabilized by the arrival of an outsider." - Richard James Havis, The Hollywood Reporter

We sat down with Raymond Lee, producer and Auraeus Solito, director of the film. CINEPOD on "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros" will air on October 14 at 8 p.m., October 15 at 7.30 p.m., and October 18 at 6.30 p.m.

Cinepod Announcement

PRESS RELEASE

CINEPOD FINDS HOME ON BAY AREA'S PERALTA TV

A new program on movies is included in Peralta TV’s Fall line up of original programming.

CINEPOD a weekly half hour program on the movies will debut on Saturday September 16 at 8 pm on Peralta TV.

CINEPOD is the creation of Executive Producer Roger Garcia. The program is a journey through cinema, following Garcia as he attends film festivals around the world, and also interviews various filmmakers, critics and talents. To round out the series, Garcia will also profile filmmakers and review their works.

The first episodes of CINEPOD are being readied for the mid-September start. The first episode is Garcia’s report on the Berlin International Film Festival which took place earlier this year. Garcia covers Michael Winterbottom’s controversial film THE ROAD TO GUANTANAMO, and encounters OLD BOY Korean director Park Chan-wook making a one-person protest at the festival. He also talks to Film Comment magazine’s European editor Olaf Moeller, and upcoming Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming-Jin. Subsequent episodes feature an interview with Japanese cult director Takashi Miike (ICHII THE KILLER); the soldier-artist turned Oscar nominee from China, Shui Bo-Wang; and one of the founders of modern European film culture Ulrich Gregor.

“Cinepod is an exploration of cinema through the people who make it, think about it, and promote it,” says Garcia, “it is not your usual superficial sound-bite entertainment fetish about Hollywood celebrities. It’s more a dialogue about cinema, and gives voice and focus to what cinema is really about – the human experience. I wanted to create a program about cinema that is different from the way that movies are usually treated on TV – for example, people on TV rarely talk about film criticism, film theories or historical films in a way that is alive and immediate. And yet these are the aspects of movies that have shaped the way we see the world.”

An important aspect of CINEPOD is its breadth, from commercial films, through exploitation movies, to art films and experimental works. “I think I am a cinephile,” says Garcia. “I am prepared to watch anything – and in general I have watched anything! The cinema is not just a story, explosions, or movie stars making out. A real movie is one that has captured or glimpsed the truth – a movie that bears witness to genuine experience.”

Future episodes promise to be wide ranging – from portraits of classic masters of cinema; through reports on film festivals in India, Korea, and Italy; to conversations with French film critic Max Tessier, Director of the Venice Film Festival Marco Muller, and emerging filmmakers Auraeus Solito and Raya Martin from the Philippines.

Garcia is producing the CINEPOD programs with Associate Producer Chanel Kong, and Los Angeles Correspondent Philip Chung, a screenwriter, columnist and playwright and director of the Lodestone Theater Company.

Roger Garcia was previously director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. His writings on cinema have been published by Variety, Film Comment, Cahiers du Cinema, and the British Film Institute among many others. As film producer he has made box office hits in Hollywood, and independent films in Asia. He has been involved in many film festivals including Berlin, London, and Locarno. He is currently program consultant for San Francisco International Film Festival, Torino Film Festival and Udine Film Festival in Italy. He recently curated a program and published a book on a retrospective of Asian musicals in Italy.

More about Cinepod on the website:

www.cinepod.net

From Blog to TV

CINEPOD is now extending from a blog into television and internet broadcasting!

We begin our weekly series on:

Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 8 p.m.

on Peralta TV in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Here's the line up for the first month -

September 16 - "Die Berlinale"

Berlin International Film Festival report - join us at one of the top film festivals in the world. See Michael Winterbottom's discuss his controversial film at the "The Road to Guantanamo" press conference; check out why Park Chan-wook, the Korean director of "Old Boy" is making a one-man protest; and check out why Berlin has always been in love with the movies.

September 23 - "From Mao to Oscar"

Growing up in China, Shui-Bo Wang really wanted to join the Peoples' Liberation Army. He became a soldier-artist but is now an Oscar nominated filmmaker. His latest documentary is "They Chose China" a fascinating story of the American GIs who stayed in China after the Korean War. We talked to him at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

September 30 - "Friend of the German Film Archive"

Ulrich Gregor is one of the important makers of European film culture. Presiding over the Arsenal Cinema in Berlin, and the Forum program section of the Berlin International Film Festival, he has influenced the course of new cinema and helped introduce Asian cinema to Europe. He sat down with CINEPOD in Berlin.

October 7 - "Looking for Miike"

A portrait of Takashi Miike, Japanese cult movie maker - we look for Miike in Tokyo and track him down in Italy where he's showing his controversial English language film "Imprint" from the Masters of Horror series. We sit down for a chat with him.

CINEPOD Webisodes will also start streaming on the internet in October. These will be short reports from festivals, meditations on cinema, and reviews of films and filmmakers that we like (or hate).

Check all of this out at our website www.cinepod.net!