ABSTRACT

In a darkened movie theater, the Thai film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010) ends. Before the house lights slowly fade on, the film aficionados remain in their seats through the credits and view what has become an all-too-familiar sight in the realm of low-budget world cinema: multiple logos listing various film funds, many sponsored by European film festivals, are dotting the screen, from which the filmmakers received support to develop, produce, or post-produce their films. In this particular case, they see fund “brands” which we might deem “endorsements of quality” with the Hubert Bals Fund (International Film Festival Rotterdam), World Cinema Fund (Berlin International Film Festival), plus the French Film Institute’s (CNC) Fonds Sud (now called aide aux cinémas du monde or World Cinema Support) which recognized Weerasethakul’s potential to make an award-winning film. And in 2010, win it did, as the first Asian film since 1997 to win the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes film festival.