I am deeply honored to receive the Best Screenplay award at the Komchadluek Awards. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for this recognition, which serves as a tremendous source of encouragement and inspiration for my future endeavors.

I attended the ceremony without the slightest expectation of winning, particularly in the screenplay category, as I do not naturally consider myself a writer. The script for Doi Boy was a journey that spanned over five years and underwent countless drafts. Therefore, I must thank the many individuals and organizations who played a crucial role in driving this project forward.

My deepest thanks to Anti-Archive and Bow Supatcha for being by my side since the very beginning. Thank you to the SEAFIC script lab for an invaluable experience that has greatly benefited my life and work. I am grateful to Fran and Jeremy for their insightful feedback, and to Chanchana Khan for brainstorming, co-writing, and advising on numerous scenes. I would also like to thank Nakorn Phopairoj and Neramitnung Film for helping to refine and polish the script, as well as Netflix for providing the platform to showcase our film.

Furthermore, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Awat Ratanapintha on winning the Best Actor award, a truly well-deserved recognition of his outstanding talent.

Currently, I am back in the process of writing a new screenplay. I kindly ask for your continued support and look forward to sharing my upcoming projects with you all.

am pleased to announce a special screening of the film Doi Boy at Fable Cinéma, located within the Phnom Penh Factory. The event is scheduled for April 7th at 4:30 PM.

Following the 99 minute screening, I will be hosting a Q&A session to discuss the film and answer your questions.

Set in Thailand, the 2023 film is presented in Thai and Shan with English subtitles. The story follows Sorn, an ethnic Shan sex worker trying to build a future in Chiang Mai as a refugee far from home. His journey takes an unexpected turn when he is drawn into a complex relationship with a client, a police officer investigating a political activist.

I look forward to sharing this project with you all and hope to see you there.

The nominees for the 17th Asian Film Awards have been officially announced, and it is a great privilege to share that Awat Ratanapintha has been nominated for Best Newcomer for his outstanding performance in the film Doi Boy. Notably, he stands as the only Thai nominee recognized at this year award ceremony.

In the film, Awat portrays Sorn, a young ethnic Shan man who crosses the border to seek informal employment in Chiang Mai. Pressed by severe limitations and challenging circumstances, Sorn finds himself drawn into a dark and dangerous mission. This exceptional portrayal previously earned Awat the Rising Star Award at the Marie Claire with BIFF Asia Star Awards 2023 during the 28th Busan International Film Festival.

“Thai filmmaker switches to fiction to reveal migrant realities”
An interview in which Nontawat discusses his move from documentary to narrative fiction with his debut feature Doi Boy, choosing fiction to protect the identities of the migrant workers who inspired the story.

read more…

Finally, I would like to say that on 2023 November 24th, you can watch “DOI BOY” global release on NETFLIX !!

This is a new experience in the life of my filmmaking, where everyone can easily watch it anywhere in the world.

I apologize to the various film festivals that have been invited and had to decline.

I apologize to the audience who were expecting to watch it in movie theaters, for various reasons, including the content and circumstances and Thai movie theaters industry’s environmental system. The best and most suitable place for “DOI BOY” is on NETFLIX.

I’m glad to hear feedback, both compliments and criticism. I hope everyone enjoys DOI BOY.

for more details : https://about.netflix.com/en/news/doi-boy-launches-on-netflix

Gritty Thai Drama ‘Doi Boy’ Marks Feature Debut for Documentary Veteran Nontawat Numbenchapol: ‘Everyone Starts With a Dream’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Read full artical by Patrick Frater

After making four documentary features about border conflicts, ethnicity, prostitution and human rights, Thai director Nontawat Numbenchapol picks up many of the same themes in his first fiction feature “Doi Boy.”

The film, which premieres this week in the Jiseok competition section of the Busan International Film Festival, is the story of three young men living on the margins of society in Thailand and their common quest for justice. The characters are an illegal immigrant from Myanmar working, despite his own heterosexuality, as a gay prostitute in Chiang Main, a customer and an on-the-run political activist he is trying to help.

The narrative takes in a large number of the social and political problems that have beset seemingly idyllic Thailand in recent years – undocumented workers, illegal immigrants fleeing the civil war in Myanmar, an oppressive political power structure, enforced ‘disappearance’ of those who the government’s political opponents and critics, police brutality – and traffic jams.

“I was surprised to find so many immigrant men [from Myanmar’s Shan region] as sex workers in Chiang Mai. It is not because they want this kind of work, but because they are undocumented and forced into low-paid jobs. I thought about making this as a documentary, but the subject is too dangerous to do that way,” Numbenchapol told Variety. “Another reason that I took this route was that I felt I’d already learned a lot about making documentaries and risked becoming stale. In contrast when I saw this as a feature, I was excited again like a baby. Everything was new again.”

“I developed the film over five years, and the script changed a lot over that time, just as there were many important events that changed my country over that same period. I started with ethnic minorities and gender issues, but as the character moves to Thailand they have to give up their dream and face up to another set of social issues. These include corruption and environmental issues too,” said Numbenchapol, “But I think the biggest topic in my film is how everyone starts out with a dream, but that dream is not safe because of the social situation.”

Despite the gritty subject matter and the authorities’ list of taboo subjects that many well-known filmmakers have confronted, Numbenchapol says he did not encounter any censorship at the production stage. “I certainly worried about it, but I think that by making this as fiction was less of a problem than if we had made a film with real people’s names.”

Numbenchapol wrote a draft of the script and saw it significantly through a series of producers’ labs, project markets and co-production markets, starting with the 2016 SEAFIC development program, That was followed by 2017 EAVE Ties That Bind – Steve Chen, Producer, 2017 Busan Festival Asian Project Market, 2017 Luang Prabang Film Lab – Nontawat Numbenchapol, Director, 2018 Busan Asian Film School (AFiS) – Supatcha Thipsena, Producer, 2018 Berlinale Co-Production Market (with support from Goethe-Institut Thailand), 2018 Cannes Cinéfondation l’Atelier – Official Selection, invitation only, and the 2019 Cannes Thai Pitch.

A lot of the potential co-producers from Europe were interested but expected to see a portion of the budget come from Thailand. “It is not easy because Thailand does not have many funds like in Germany or France, and this project was likely too critical for it to receive support from the government’s fund,” said Numbenchapol. But, surprisingly, he found backing from new studio Neramitnung Film, which was interested in putting up the entire production budget.

“I talked with my [French Cambodian] producer Davy Chou (“Golden Slumbers,” “Return to Seoul”) at Anti-Archive, and we decided go with Neramitnung, because their money seemed really secure and to say sorry to some of the others who wanted to be involved,” said Numbenchapol. That left the film as a Thai-Cambodian co-production.

The budget was typical for a Thai-produced indie, pegged at $725,000. That was enough for 20 days of shooting and provided limited room for improvization.

Though Numbenchapol says he’d like to go further in the fiction register and has not committed to his next project, he won’t be turning his back on non-fiction either. “I make documentaries in order to make a living. I’m often contacted to help out on foreign production Or, to make short documentaries for NGOs, TV or as art. The income is not as bad as people think,” Numbenchapol says.

Variety…

Doi Boy heads to udine FAR EAST FILM festival Focus Asia Far East in Progress! The film is currently in post-production and was incubated through the EAVE Ties That Bind workshop in 2017. Much thanks to the festival for giving DOI BOY a chance to return to Udine once again!