BKKIFF Day 3 - Sunday

The cast of 3 Friends

I wasn't due to be seeing any films until the middle of the afternoon so I took the opportunity to call up Paul Spurrier - director of P - who I knew was currently staying in Bangkok. By chance he was in a taxi minutes away, so he quickly alighted and we met up for lunch. It was really good to catch up on all the latest news surrounding P (it's currently on release in Spain, will be distributed by Anchor Bay in the UK, and may yet be submitted for a theatrical release here in Thailand) and news of his current projects - he's recently been working as DP on a Thai epic with the (English) working title End Of Empire which is currently being edited and he's keen to show me some footage from if it can be arranged while I'm here.

Over at BKKIFF the box office hiccups from the previous day seemed to have been sorted out and there was now a separate desk with pre-printed tickets available for collection. After interrogating one of the staff volunteers over the identity of some of the Thai celebrities who've been attending the festival I then caught my only film of the day, 3 Friends, a docu-drama starring the very lovely Napakpapah Nakprasit who I'd met on Friday night. She and the rest of the cast and crew turned up for a Q&A directly after the screening and I've now discovered that she's also one of the leads in Art Of The Devil 2 which I'm due to see later in the week.



Steven Gados interviews Christopher Lee

After a quick bite to eat it was straight back up to the main hall to listen to a conversation with Christopher Lee. I was due to be seeing a screening of The Man With The Golden Gun directly afterwards, however they'd scheduled a press conference immediately after the interview so I decided I'd much rather stay for that. So what did the great man have to say?

On directors - "My favourite director is Tim Burton and favourite actor, Johnny Depp. The greatest director I've ever worked with, one name stands out - Billy Wilder."

On Hammer films - "Hammer were responsible for me becoming a name and a face. I did 22 films in 18 years, some were very good and became classics, others weren't very good but people still remember them. It was rather like a family. They never paid me anything though; in the first one I was the lead and I got paid five hundred pounds!"

On James Bond - "I've no opinion on Daniel Craig until the film comes out. There's such a lot of rubbish that's been written about him. Pierce Brosnan was by far the best, the closest to the character that Fleming invented."

On The Lord Of The Rings - "The greatest work of fiction. How do I feel about Peter Jackson removing the death scene for Saruman? Inexplicable. How would I compare the two great sagas (Star Wars)? You can't. One happens on earth, albeit middle-earth, the other happens in galactic space."

On Asian films - "Asian films are taking a huge leap forward, there's some brilliant films from some wonderful directors and people in the West are being made aware of these through festivals."