Chiang Mai farmer/laborer Lung Neaw has worked with RIrkrit Tiravanija for several years now. He helped build the artist's house. Tiravanija's footage of him has appeared in various gallery and museum installations.
And Saturday, Tiravanija's film, Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbors, will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Maybe there should be a spoiler alert somewhere, because from the synopsis, the title pretty much gives the entire 2.5 hour movie away.
In a Q&A on the Lung Neaw website the artist says he sees the film not as "a documentary and not a narrative, perhaps it's more of a portraiture."
He and his longtime Mexico City dealer's brother Christian Manzutto shot a week or so at a time:
So we shot over a period of two years and another to edit and postproduction, the film was really made very simply and with very little by way of crew and equipment, in that relationship for me very much like a documentary but also very much like how an artist would approach the production, also with very small but cost-effective budget. We shot in film (super 16mm) so rather small and light unit but with frames and quality which was not video.An interesting choice, and an interesting approach. Two of his galleries, kurimanzutto and Gavin Brown's Enterprise, have associate producer credit.
See the Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbours trailer [vimeo]
Thai media article on the project: Lung Neaw goes to Venice [nationmultimedia.com]
