Local viewers bring Bangkok fest success

September 30, 2008 The world premiere of "Nanayo," shot almost entirely in Thailand by Japanese director Naomi Kawase, on Tuesday closed out a Bangkok International Film Festival that organizers are terming a major success. Given the festival's history of scandal, last year's lackluster edition and difficulties at the start of this year's event -- when news of a scheduled film's banning grabbed international headlines -- organizers were delighted that 14,000 tickets were sold. During the screening of New Zealand director Vincent Ward's "Rain of the Children," Ward grew so incensed that the Thai subtitles weren't working properly that he went to the back of the theater and grabbed and threw the equipment at the operator, who was taken to a hospital.

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