BANGKOK, Thailand – The Thai film “A Useful Ghost” won the Grand Prize AMI Paris in the Critics’ Week section at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, held in France from May 13th to 24th. This is the first Thai film in a decade to be selected for competition at Cannes and to win an award, marking a major milestone for the Thai film industry on the global stage.
Sudawan Wangsuphakijkosol, Minister of Culture, said the film was produced by 185 Films Co., Ltd. It received international support, including pre-production funding from the Ministry of Culture, Open Doors Award from Locarno, co-production support from IMDA Singapore, Aide aux Cinémas du Monde from France, Hubert Bals Fund+Europe from the Netherlands, World Cinema Fund from Germany, and post-production backing from THACCA under the Department of Cultural Promotion.
The success was credited to the collaboration of the public and private sectors. It demonstrated that Thai cinema has the potential to compete internationally. Agencies such as the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, THACCA, and the National Soft Power Committee are committed to further supporting the industry’s global growth and economic role.
The film is a comedy-fantasy-horror story about a grieving man whose wife dies from pollution. Her ghost returns inside a vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile, the ghost of a former worker haunts his mother’s factory, causing its closure. The ghost-wife tries to prove that their love can work, even between a man and an appliance, and aims to become a “useful ghost” by driving out the useless ones from the factory. (NNT)
