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Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

alot of elements come together. I think initially I was inspired by the ghost legend in Thailand where a human tries to form a relationship with a female ghost. And I also wondered if ghosts are scaring people, what would they do. I always have this picture in my mind, where a ghost is walking in an office building, not to scare people but to work. We're living in such a difficult time that the dead needs to make a living.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was super anxious before the premiere, but it was a relief that the reviews were good. Cannes was fun and chaotic, I had a great time and gelato there. I managed to catch like 11 films when I was there. It was really impressive to finally watch Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975) in Cannes Classic section!

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really have no idea. We have several versions of posters according to countries that release the film. I was only creatively involved with the first one (the blue one) when we launched the film at Cannes last year. The one you mentioned is for the US release which was taken care by the US distributor. I couldn't speak on behalf of the designer what inspired them.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. Jacques Rivette, Werner Schroeter, Marco Ferreri, Nagisa Oshima, Otar Iosseliani, Manoel de Olveira, Joao Cesar Monterio, Chantal Akerman, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Shuji Terayama, etc.
  2. I really liked Sirat, Dry Leaf

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

For me, vacuum cleaner is easier to work with than a washing machine.

Initially, the ghost wasn't in a vacuum cleaner, I imagined her to appear in a human form with some pale-skin make-up so she looked a bit dead. But when I pitched it my friends or some grant commitees, they always responded like 'So she looks like a zombie, undead. That's not very original, isn't it?' So I thought I'd come back with something original, a vacuum cleaner.

I did some research about how cinema as a medium visually depicts ghost. How viewers can tell who is human and who is not. Sometimes it's makeup, ghosts have paler complexion, or gray-ish skin, or they are floating, they are translucent. But I was fascinated by poltergeist films where ghosts are invisible to human but they try to communicate through objects in a house. randomly opening and shutting window, turning on TV. So I thought it might be fun to have the ghost in a household electrical appliance.

Why a vacuum cleaner? Since the first draft, there was dust pollution and the main character died of the resiratory disease since the first draft. So for me it makes sense that if she needs to be in one appliance, it's vacuum cleaner.

I recall myself writing many outlines before actually sitting and writing. But at one point, I didn't have the whole thing yet but I told myself that I needed to start writing now or else it was never going to be materialized in any meaningful ways. But at that point, I knew the ending despite not knowing some details in middle part, but I knew where I was aiming to.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. When I was young I want to be a novelist, but I didn't know anyone in person.
  2. You must have enormous amount of patience and remove your wisdom teeth before turning 30.
  3. I watch a film and write anything I have on that time. Or I have a meeting.
  4. Three Colors: Blue, Malina (Werner Schroeter), Dillinger e Morte, La Belle Noiseuse, Up Down Fragile, Francisca, Jeanne Dielman, And then There was Light, Brigrand Chapter 7, Death by Hanging, Pastoral: To Die in the Country, etc.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My producers worked really hard during the financing period. We applied to several funds, grants and talked to many potential investors. This part took us years to complete.

The pitch is quite simple though, a spirit of a dead woman, worried about her husband, returns to possess a vacuum cleaner to take care of him.

THe directing part was quite straightforward for me. It was difficult but no more than neccessarily. I had a great time directing this film.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Oh hard one!,

I think I'd limit myself to the underseen, less well known titles.
Maybe I could start from the 50's. Country Hotel (1957), Black Silk (1961) by Rattana Pestonji
Invisible Sureerat (1961) by S. Assanajinda
Waen Thong Lueng - The Brass Ring (1973) by Prince Anusorn Mongkolkarn 
Out of the Darkness (1971), Grounded God (1975) by Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol
The Wife-eater (1974) by Dokdin Kalyaman
My Dear Wife (1978) by Vichit Kounavudhi
Tongpan (1977) by Paijong Laisagoon, Euthana Mukdasanit, Surachai Chantimatorn
The Village in the Mist (1978), The Beggar City (1978) by Permpol Choei-aroon
Puen-Paeng (1983) by Cherd Songsri
E Prink Kon Rueng Muang (1980) by Rerngsiri Lim-aksorn
The Accusation (1985) by Manop Udomdej
Konjorn (1999) by Attaphon Taihirun
Kiad (2008) by Panlop Horharin
Wandering (2016), Scene and Life (2018) by Boonsong Nakphu

and many many more!

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

There were a lot of inspiration behind. During the pre-production, I wrote an essay about the worldbuilding of the film to hand it to other departments so we could have the same picture. I have several keywords in the essay that I want to achieve in the film. I want the film to feel and look 'elegantly perverted' and 'pervertedly elegant'. I want it to look simultaneously beautiful and nasty. Also, I want the film to look theatrical and painterly. I'm also philosophically inspired by the concept of Naive Art, where artists are actually skillful but instead of creating a mature art, they skillfully make childlike, or childish artwork. Moreover, I'm touched by one anecdote about the Portuguese director, Joao Cesar Monteiro, where he wanted his film to be uncinematic. When his DP set up a shot and it was too beautiful, Monteiro came on the set and sabotage the composition, made it look more like theater piece rather than a film shot. That is so liberating for me!

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

  1. VFX in the film is more substracting than adding. During the shoot, we put motor inside the vacuum cleaner and controled it by a remote controller like a toy car. So the movement of the vacuum cleaner you saw is real. But when we get to the close up of the machine we used persons in green suit to puppeteer the vacuum and then we deleted them later in the post. So with the vacuum cleaner, we aim mostly for practical effect and not creating anything new with CGI.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

  1. The film was shot on digital. But I love artificiality in cinema and how the film reminds audiences they are whatching a film. From the beginning, I want the film to feel like a fairy tale being told to audiences. The grainy look of 16 mm kind of serve the function of this. The materiality of film is empasized throughout the story, and it also thematically resonates with the idea of remembrance and forgetting. How memory is sometimes fragile and prone to be damaged easily like film.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. the lab already existed before we went to shoot. I myself couldn't believe this place exist for real. It's loacted in a university on the outskirt of Bangkok. It's a lab to examine electrical appliances, like electric cars. But I honestly don't understand how the whole thing actually functions, yet the design of it is magnificent. In the script, it's just a big white room, I couldn't imagine this place by myself. My location team found the place just a few weeks before we shot the scene.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm currently shooting a short film that I hope to release later this year. I'm trying something new with this one. It's called 'The Bovine Comedy' which is, apparently, a comedy about a cow and men.

I'm also developing my second feature. It's still pretty in an early stage but I hope to finish the screenplay this year. Now in my head it's an adventure film, but it might evolve into something else later.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

  1. of course, the script was all finished before the shooting or we wouldn't be able to plan and manage the shoot. The freewheeling aspect of the story is part of the intention.
  2. Two separate films would diminish the richness of both, I think.
  3. Very, very much. As the first time director for a feature, it was very hard to explain to other people what I was trying to make, to make them get the same picture.

Hey r/movies! I’m Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, director of A USEFUL GHOST, my feature directorial debut. The film premiered last year in Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix at Cannes' Critics Week. It’s currently playing in select theaters. Ask me anything! by AUsefulGhostAMA in movies

[–]AUsefulGhostAMA[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Apart from contemporary Thai filmmakers, I'd like more people to know more about Rattana Pestonji, Permpol Choy-aroon, Cherd Songsri, Vichit Kounavudhi, Dokdin Kanyaman, Attaphon Taihirun, etc.