Exit to the North

Any excuse to go up to Chiangmai is a good excuse and MTV Exit's invitation to Chiangmai to stay at the Four Seasons Mae Rim and do the backstage interviews at the MTV Exit, Live in Chiangmai concert definitely fits the bill.

Despite the rain and the gloom, the Four Seasons is still lovely, we had a really spacious pavilion overlooking the rice paddies. The view onto the rice paddies is sublime, it is a very manicured rice paddy but they have kept the little wooden rice huts in the distance and buffaloes roam around. It is like living in another time with the comforts of the Four Seasons, I could probably get used to it! Especially as the food is rather good, I had a bite of the Club Sandwich, defo not a traditional one, a little bit Italian inspired but still good and I loved the gnocchi.

room

view from room

gnocchi

water buffaloes Tong and Tae x me

MTV Exit is MTV's campaign vs. human trafficking. MCOT happens to be their media partner for the campaign with the documentary premiering tonight! July 5th at 11.45 pm on Modernine. It is an informative, honest and very well made documentary about human trafficking, it raises awareness as to how shattering and widespread the crime is, especially in SE Asia and is hosted by Ananda (who is the ambassador for this campaign). The concert was an awareness raising event coupled together with major entertainment with the finale being the Korean phenomenon Super Junior M. It was pretty amazing what the turn out was considering the fact that it rained and rained all day and that the stadium is outdoors. We are talking 20,000 people in blue ponchos watching shortfilms made about the perils of human trafficking by students from Chiang Mai universtity and around the region between sets from ETC, Thaitainium, Slot-Machine and Kate Miller-Heidke.

Lee, Ananda and P'Jeab backstage

Thaitanium, Southside and I

the audience during Super Junior M set

Super Junior M paparazzi shot

There is this kind of craziness that comes with Korean pop stars, this idol worship and devoted fan behaviour which until that night I have never seen. I mean, properly, fans running through the rain to get prime spot, fans fainting, fan club gifts, this obsession. The managers are able to safeguard the artists' personalities to the point that they are untouchable, that probably adds to their appeal. I got a tiny little glimpse . . . then got thrown off the side stage, then went to hang out with the cops on the other side stage. I kinda get it but not really. Oh well, not gonna fight against millions who just love them to ask why. The concert special (with my little backstage interviews) will air on Modernine TV too, on July 17th at 21.30. Should be fun!

The next day, we just hung out, it's nice to be in the mountains, grey skies, and that kind of forest jungle feel. It's sleepy and calm. The little Wawee coffeshop and gallery on the hill is really nice, there were brother and sister cats hanging out in the little shrine too.

And its nice to know that you can walk out of the Four SEasons grounds to get a little bit of local action. The local action on that day were fans, lots of them, plotting a way to enter the Four Seasons to meet Super Junior, talk about determination. We witnessed a fan who was able to convince the security guard to take her bouquet of flowers to Super Junior. Sweet.

Back to the Four Seasons.

The weekend ended with a lovely wrap party at Ratree bar by the pool (the MTV crew all ended up in the pool, I did not) nicely done and thank goodness for the 24 hour room service.

K Yanisa, Ananda, K Titiya, Kate Miller-Heide and Ruici

Then finally time to leave, short little northern escape, without going to North Gate and Huanpen! I think that warrants as an excuse to go back very soon.

A High Society Closure

February 14th is the day of love . . .or so they say . . .it says a lot about our own personal love lives that a group of people should find themselves on a movie set on Valentine's day (and Chinese New Year) where instead of Tigers and fireworks or candlelit dinner, we went to a Christmas party, for the last day of filming for Aditya Assarat's High Society.  

P'Juke and Ananda

The director, Aditya Assarat (P'Juke) said to me that he wanted me to see the inner-workings of a film set, well, thank you to p'Juke and Ananda, I spent an afternoon and a night, thoroughly entertained and fascinated.  It is the inverse of fashion and all that I know, as on film, the life (life in the movie) comes to life . . . a paradox in terms no? 

My involvement here, as was Jolanda's, Louis', James', Potsy's etc etc were that we played Ananda's friends so in actual fact, played ourselves, and he played a movie star (himself) - he was hanging with his friends, all international kids back home in Bkk for the holidays.  Well, there is a very fine line of where art imitates life and life imitates art . . . it was blurred that night and I imagine in the film, where I imagine that line went backwards and forwards like a pendulum. . . 

Hardly, reality but if it looks on celluiloid like we were having fun, chances were that we actually were having fun.

Jolanda and I

James

High Society is a movie by Aditya starring Ananda about a "dek nok" a specific type of Thai who is Thai yet not due to his years abroad exists as an outsider yet an  insider, this is explored through his instant stardom as an actor upon his return from abroad and his relationships with his foreign girlfriend who comes to visit him and later his very Thai girlfriend . . .well, how much of that is actually reality? He has the freedom to leave it all - that I can relate to rather well.  Again, it begs the question of where does real-life start.  I was on a fate forest (feng-shui reasons) clearing mission that took me to Khao Yai - I was supposed to spend the weekend away but justified an early return as a film set is not reality . .yet the Christmas party did after midnight turn into a real party and the water shots turned to vodka . . .so I did drive home in the early morning of the 15th from a parallel universe after all. 

cigarettes, beer and vodka - product placement dream

Potsy and his doppelganger doll

Ananda

MCOT (I have for the last 6 months ended my days of listless joy to consult the President of the organisation on intellectual property and special projects) will be supporting this movie, in a way in which the Thai film industry has yet to see and hopefully it will finally give a small industry with a lot of soul that has always sustained itself, the appreciation and support that it deserves.  

It is something to be proud of that our independent films go to Cannes and other festivals(our commercial ones save for a few do not), our artists are at the Guggenheim, and we are funded by foreign funds but it is a perhaps a tad bit shameful (or to be quite frank, completely and utterly embarrassing) that we do not have institutional support for this little diaspora of creatives.  This of course is a vast generalisation and I am fully aware that there are a few individuals, great individuals, who give support and patron, yet, these men are far and few between. . .just a thought.

Hey, we had fun though . . . can't wait to see the film.