Thailand is joining the ranks of countries who are helping develop their young film talent. Two Thai directors, Twitch favorite Pen-ek Ratanaruang, and Nonzee Nimibutr have launched a script development project, a first for their country.
Based loosely on the models of Cinemart and Pusan Promotion Plan the two directors have called for young Thai writers to submit a five-page treatment to their new Thailand Script Project. 30 candidates will chosen from the submissions. These candidates will go through screen writing and project selling workshops with established producers and writers. They then have two months to finish their scripts. Of those 30 only 15 finalists will have the chance to meet one-on-one with studio heads. Three prizes worth 100,000 baht each ($3,000) will be awarded to three top scripts.
Nimibutr said, "We see the success of Cinemart and PPP and believe we can initiate something like that here."
Ratanaruang said, "We want to make it an annual project, or at least biannual, if we continue to have support from all parties."
If it brings more excellent films out from Thailand then we're all for it.
This sounds very cool. Thanks for sharing this interesting news, Mack.