“Saturday Night Live” nominees Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson led a group of actors including pop stars John Legend and Ricky Martin — and even RuPaul — in the amusing song-and-dance number touching on the hot-button issues.

They then yielded the stage to hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che, who are also regulars on the veteran NBC comedy sketch show — and let the zingers fly.

“This year, the audience is allowed to drink in their seats. Hope you’re excited about that — because the one thing Hollywood needs right now is a bunch of people losing their inhibitions at a work function,” Jost said to hearty laughs.

In describing “The Handmaid’s Tale,” one of the evening’s top nominees, Che said the Hulu show “takes place in an imaginary future where an entire group of people is violently forced to work and make babies against their will.”

“It’s what black people call history. It’s ‘Roots’ for white women,” he quipped, referring to the landmark 1970s television mini-series about slavery.

The glittering gala in downtown Los Angeles will see “The Handmaid’s Tale” face off with record-breaking HBO fantasy epic “Game of Thrones” for top honors — especially the coveted best drama prize.

Others in the best drama race include FX spy thriller “The Americans,” HBO’s futuristic western “Westworld,” Netflix favorites “The Crown” and retro sci-fi mystery “Stranger Things,” and NBC family saga “This is Us.”

The first awards of the night went to sentimental favorite Henry Winkler – the Fonz himself — for best supporting actor in a comedy for “Barry,” and to Alex Borstein for Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.”

THE TORONTO International Film Festival, one of the world’s largest and most important public film events is also the most varied, bringing films of every genre to eager audiences.

One of its 14 sections, TIFF Docs, focuses on documentaries covering different issues and this year has included Errol Morris’s “American Dharma” about former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and the latest documentary by Michael Moore “Fahrenheit 11/9”, which examines Trump’s triumph in the 2016 presidential election.

Another global issue presented through documentaries in this section is migration, as explored in the Danish film “Heartbound”. Directed by Janus Metz and Sine Plambech, it looks at Thai women from the country’s Northeast or Isaan who migrate to Denmark to marry Danish men.

Though the phenomenon known as “Koey Farang” (Western sons-in-law) is widely known in Thailand, few films have touched on this subject. In 2011, Thai director Chinores Kamwandee’s “White Buffalo” told the story of a young man who returns to his village and discovers it has been almost overrun by these koey farang.

Award-winning director Aditya Assarat also has a film project with a similar name. “The White Buffalo”, which is yet to be made, is about an Englishman married to an uneducated bar girl.

And so Metz and Plambach’s “Heartbound” might be the first time for audiences to see the real lives of Thai women who travel far from home to start their new lives with European husbands.

“For 15 years, I have been working with the Thai community in Denmark and in Isaan,” Sine Plambech tells XP after the documentary’s world premiere in Toronto.

A researcher and anthropologist at the Danish Institute for International Studies, she came up with the idea for the documentary project conducting field work with a group Thai women living in a remote area of Denmark.

“As an anthropologist, I was curious why they were here, what they were doing and where they came from in Thailand. I started interviewing them in 2003, and I asked them if I could go to visit their families in Isaan.”

With their agreement, Plambach went to their hometowns to learn more about the women who had left their families behind to marry Danish men in a country they knew little about.

“It was my first visit to Thailand. Some of the families picked me up in Korat, and took me in their pick-up truck to a small village in the middle of Isaan. In the village, they showed me the farang houses. It was interesting as it showed how much the villages had changed because of these mixed marriages.”

While it has not been too difficult for these Thai women to blend in with Danish society, the current spread of nationalism and immigrant sentiment all over Europe means that foreign wives could well face prejudice.

“On one hand, the Thai women have been welcomed into the local community and in Danish society and they all have jobs in factories and in the service sector. On the other hand they do face prejudice because they have come to Denmark to create a better life for themselves and their children – and not because they were in love. The love between Thai women and Danish men usually grows as the years progress.”

“I tried to understand how people are navigating the global world. We have new opportunities, but I wanted to know how that was understood at the local level. The marriage between Thai women and Danish men was an intimate place for a conversation about globalisation to begin,” says Janus Metz, co-director of the film who in 2006, was making films about African immigrant in Europe. After meeting Sine, he decided to work with her and help her transform her research on Thai women into a documentary.

“It’s essentially the same story,” he says. “It’s about women who migrate through marriage, but are looking for ways to help their families back home. It’s a fairy-tale type of story. I saw the opportunity to tell this story through a documentary.”

“Heartbound” explores the lives of several Thai women from Isaan who married Danish men and moved to Denmark. Metz and Plambach started filming the documentary in 2006 and it follows the lives of the characters from then until today

One of them, Sommai, moved to Denmark 25 years ago and has become a matchmaker who helps Thai women find Danish husbands.

“Sommai is the main protagonist of the film, and one of the key persons in my research. When I started working on it, everyone was talking about Sommai, telling me I needed to meet her because she was one of the first women to come to that area. I arranged a dinner with all the people. We hit it off and they all agreed to be in the film,” Plambach explains.

“It was also important for Sommai. Over the years, she has taken this on as a kind of political project. She wants to tell her story. The day we had a private screening in Denmark, which the people from the Thai Embassy attended, Sommai gave a speech in Thai to Thai women, telling them that the documentary narrates their real lives, their real stories. It has not been directed, and they should not be ashamed of their lives and how they came to Denmark.”

Kae, Sommai’s niece, is one of the women who came to Denmark to marry Kjeld, a factory worker.

“We met Kae for the first time at Copenhagen airport, and we met her on camera,” says Metz who filmed Kae from the moment she arrived in Denmark until 2016, when her now grown son from a previous marriage who had lived with the couple, moved to Copenhagen to work in a restaurant.

“We tried to talk to Kae through Sommai. She’s in the film because Sommai told her that she has to be in the film,” says Metz. Indeed, it was not the first time that Kae and Kjeld had appeared on screen. Their lives were the subject of a documentary for Danish television back in 2007 called “Love On Delivery” (“From Thailand to Thy”).

“The documentary became very popular with more than one million viewers watching it. After that I continued my research, and seven years later, we decided to go back and film again as there are many dramatic things going on in the lives of these people.”

The film also examines the life of one woman who wants to find a foreign husband but ends up as a sex worker in Pattaya.

“As documentarians, we wanted to look at reality as it is, and not try to make a polished image of the situation. This is the reality of what is going on right now.”, Metz explains.

The world premiere of “Heartbound” was packed to the gills and a hit with the audience. The characters in the film, though unable to come to Toronto, were all excited to see their stories being told to an international audience.

“All the Thai women in Denmark have been texting me asking about the premiere in Toronto. Everyone is very proud to be part of this story. It was too much for them to come to Toronto. Some of them have children, work or bad knees, but Sommai will come with me for the screening of the film in Zurich,” Plambach says.

After Toronto, the film will travel to other festivals, and the directors hope that “Heartbound” will be able to reach Thai filmgoers soon.

“We are negotiating right now with film festivals in Thailand”, says Plambach. “We have been working a little with a local film distributor in Isaan and hope that the film can be screened for the local community.”

But the Fox reboot, which cost $88 million to make, will look to earn back some money in international markets, as its estimated $24 million haul did not meet expectations.

The movie, which comes more than 30 years after the franchise’s original film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, courted controversy before its release when the studio cut a scene featuring an actor who was a registered sex offender.

Star Olivia Munn had requested the change, saying she was unaware of the actor’s past when the scene was filmed. Director Shane Black initially said he hired the actor because he was a friend, but later issued a strong apology.

Dropping to second place was last week’s top draw, horror movie “The Nun” — the latest fright fest in the popular “Conjuring” series. It earned an estimated $18.2 million in its second week, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said.

“Nun” stars Taissa Farmiga — whose sister Vera headlined two “Conjuring” films — in a story about a young nun, an exorcist and a guide stumbling onto a dark secret deep in Dracula country: the Romania of 1952 — Transylvania, no less.

Opening in the third spot was “A Simple Favor,” a tale about a mommy blogger (Anna Kendrick) investigating the disappearance of her friend (Blake Lively). The Lionsgate film raked in $16.1 million on the back of positive reviews.

Matthew McConaughey’s new film “White Boy Rick” opened in fourth place with $8.8 million. The movie, based on a true story, stars the Oscar winner as the father of a teenage boy who became an informant for the FBI in the 1980s.

Glitzy rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians,” another Warner Bros product along with “The Nun,” fell to fifth place. The film, with a nearly all-Asian cast led by Henry Golding and Constance Wu, took in $8.7 million, building on a crazy-good run.

Its North American take stands at nearly $150 million, with another $28 million earned overseas.

Rounding out this weekend’s top 10 were:

“Peppermint” ($6.1 million)

“The Meg” ($3.8 million)

“Searching” ($3.2 million)

“Unbroken: Path to Redemption” ($2.4 million)

“Mission Impossible — Fallout” ($2.3 million)

But winter could come early for HBO’s blood-spattered smash hit if it fails to snare the coveted best drama series prize, with last year’s winner “The Handmaid’s Tale” hotly tipped to defend its crown.

Both shows have already picked up some Emmys hardware: “Game of Thrones” won seven statuettes in technical categories at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, while “The Handmaid’s Tale” scooped up three.

And both are likely to add to that haul at Monday’s glittering gala in downtown Los Angeles, but the race for the top prize still seems to be a crapshoot, with dark horse pick “The Americans” also in the hunt.

Can “Handmaid” — Hulu’s bleak take on a totalitarian America where women are oppressed, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel — again win over voters, especially in the #MeToo era?

Will “The Americans” — the gripping FX thriller about Soviet sleeper agents in the United States during the Cold War — finally earn some Emmys love after a critically acclaimed six-season run?

Or will “GoT,” the cinematic tale of noble families vying for the Iron Throne, reign supreme once again, on the back of its whopping 22 nominations?

Others in the best drama category include HBO’s futuristic western “Westworld,” Netflix favorites “The Crown” and retro sci-fi mystery “Stranger Things,” and NBC family saga “This is Us.”

The Television Academy’s 22,000-plus members have already cast their ballots for the 70th Primetime Emmys, the small-screen answer to the Oscars — so it’s time for red carpet glamour and heartfelt speeches.

For Robert Thompson, professor of pop culture and television history at Syracuse University in New York, there are no “obvious winners” on the drama side — but a plethora of innovative, quality comedies.

“As peak TV settles into middle age, half-hour comedies are television’s red Corvette,” Thompson said — a shiny new toy for viewers.

With perennial heavy hitter “Veep” out of contention this year, FX’s “Atlanta” — a quirky look at the rap scene in the Georgia capital — is squaring off with Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” for top honors.

“Atlanta” star and creator Donald Glover, a winner last year for best lead comedy actor, is tipped to repeat. Overall, the show earned 16 nominations.

TV history in making

In 2016, “Game of Thrones” made history, picking up 12 awards and becoming the most decorated fictional show since the Television Academy first handed out prizes in 1949.

With the seven statuettes it won last weekend, “GoT” — which will return in 2019 for an eighth and final season — now has 45 Emmys overall.

On Monday, beyond the best drama trophy, cast members Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Peter Dinklage are nominated, along with the show’s directors and writers.

Other major contenders include FX’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” which racked up 18 nominations.

Darren Criss is the favorite to win the star-studded race for best actor in a limited series or movie for his searing portrayal of Versace’s killer Andrew Cunanan.

But he faces stiff competition from a clutch of boldface names including Antonio Banderas, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeff Daniels and John Legend, the pop crooner who has already made some history of his own.

The “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert” headliner joined the musical’s co-producers Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice as the latest showbiz personalities to earn EGOT status.

Each now has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Only 12 others have achieved the distinction.

Another bit of Emmys history: streaming giant Netflix ended HBO’s 17-year streak of leading the nominations, with 112 to the premium cable network’s 108.

After last week’s Creative Arts Emmys, HBO has won 17 statuettes to Netflix’s 16.

Politics and ratings

Another major contender is veteran comedy sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” just behind “GoT” with 21 nominations.

Show regulars Michael Che and Colin Jost will host the Emmys at the Microsoft Theater, to be broadcast on NBC, and series creator Lorne Michaels will produce the event for the first time in 30 years.

With awards show audiences dwindling in the age of Twitter, can the “SNL” team breathe new life into the format?

“If anyone can do live TV and try to keep the format relevant, I suppose it’s Lorne Michaels,” Thompson said.

Jost has said he wants the Emmys to be “less political than normal” — but that seems unlikely only a week after CBS chairman and CEO Les Moonves left in a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations.

For Thompson, television’s best and brightest “tend to be politically conscious folks” and given that the #MeToo movement erupted after last year’s Emmys gala, a few well-placed comments appear inevitable.

 “Under Construction”, the second movie in River City Film Club’s September Film Series hails from Bangladesh and is being screened tomorrow at 4pm.

The film, which has won awards from festivals around the world, opened the recent Dhaka International Film Festival.

Its director Rubaiyat Hossain studied in the US and is currently following a film studies course at the Tisch School of Arts in New York. She hops between Bangladesh and the US, and has started a film production company in Dhaka, Khona Talkies, to support talented film-makers from her country.

“Under Construction” is a woman-centric film, using both mainly female actors and crew. It follows Roya who tries to break out of stereotypes, both in her personal life as a middle-class housewife and in her professional life as a stage actress. She does not want to be a typical housewife at home, including having a child, which disturbs her otherwise-cool husband. At work, she tries to re-interpret the role of the female protagonist Nandini, in the famed play “Red Oleanders” by Nobel Laureate author Rabindranath Tagore, which shocks her stage- director. The only person who seems to understand her is the US-based theatre curator Imtiaz, and they are strongly drawn to each other.

The film is Bengali with English subtitles and admission is free.

The film-event is supported by the Embassy of Bangladesh, who will host a Reception after the screening. Ambassador Saida Muna Tasneem, will introduce the film.

The film screening will be held at the River City Forum on the second floor of River City Shopping Centre.

Book your seat at rcbfilmclub@gmail.com.

A hard-to-watch telling of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India in Anthony Maras’s “Hotel Mumbai” provoked tears and cheers at its world premiere at the Toronto film festival.

It is an “anthem of resistance,” the Australian director declared at a press conference.

“You had a whole lot of people from every conceivable background, racial, ethnic, from different socio-economic groups who came together in the face of real adversity to survive,” Maras said.

The film received a standing ovation over the weekend for its searing, vivid dramatisation of the events at the opulent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, targeted by Lashkare-Taiba militants.

It was also praised by critics for its empathetic portrayal of both the victims and the perpetrators.

Armie Hammer, who plays an American guest of the hotel, said: “The script was dripping in humanity.”

“You see the toll the attack has on the guests and the staff of the hotel, but you also see it, really for the first time that I can think of, on the actual perpetrators,” he said.

Nazanin Boniadi, who played his wife in the movie, had tears streaming down her face on stage during a post-premiere question-and-answer with the audience.

Director Anthony Maras

Jason Isaacs, cast as a Russian guest of the hotel, urged watching it with others in a cinema, saying it “connects you with other people and to recognise your common humanity.”

The hotel siege was part of a coordinated series of attacks in India’s most populous city which left more than 160 dead and hundreds wounded.

The film includes television footage of the attacks, as well as excerpts of interviews by the filmmaker of the survivors.

The hotel’s executive chef Hemant Oberoi, who has been credited for saving many lives during the assault, was on hand for the premiere.

Anupam Kher plays him in the film, which was his 501st and, he said, the first to earn him praise as an actor from his mother: “She said ‘I cried, I was very moved by your acting.”

Maras was also granted access to transcripts of intercepted calls between the 10 attackers and their handlers, as well as a video confession from the trial of the only surviving gunman.

A lot of their dialogue in the film, he said, was “verbatim”. “We couldn’t make up anything to the extent of what we heard on those chilling tapes,” he said.

This included a handler telling one of the attackers to leave his phone on throughout the assault so that he might hear the victims’ screams.

For days, the staff and guests of the hotel were on their own as police were outgunned, using old rifles against automatic weapons and grenades.

Maras said the hotel staff stuffed baking trays and saucepans down their shirts to use as shielding, and armed themselves with rolling pins and kitchen knives to try to protect themselves and guests.

“At a time when people are becoming so divided over so many different lines, to have this story where all these people are coming together selflessly to help each other… they were there for one another,” he commented.

“What’s remarkable is that despite the fact they must all have been out of their wits with terror they continued to act for each other and help each other,” echoed Isaacs.

Dev Patel had just finished acting in his first feature film “Slumdog Millionaire” when the violence in Mumbai was splashed live across television news channels around the world.

“To come back off this amazing journey (to India) and enter my house in London and see my parents looking at the television screen, watching the city essentially burn, it was very difficult,” he said.

“It’s horrible what happened there.”

The hotel was completely restored by 2010, and a monument was erected in the lobby to commemorate the victims.

The attacks, Patel said, “are still very raw for a lot of people.”

“But they really wanted to put that in the past and show that it didn’t cripple them.”

The coming-of-age film, which won Best Film at the 2018 Asian Film Awards, is set in 1970s and portrays the performing art troupe members of the People’s Liberation Army during the Cultural Revolution. Each face their own trials and tribulations; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

“Youth” is chosen by Suthee Muenwaja, the costume designer for GTH and GDH’s most successful films including “Pee Mak”, “Hello Stranger” and “Brother of the Year”.

“The costume in this film doesn’t stand out as much but it rather ratifies that costume is a part of the film’s overall art direction. All the colours of the costume in this film are in sync with the whole production. At first, the bright colours of the costume reflects the blooming youth before changing the tone to represent the sombre mood of the film and the characters that have been through difficult experiences,” says Suthee.

Entry is Bt60 per person (with a free programme). Tickets are available at 3pm and the screening starts at5pm. The film is in Chinese with English and Thai subtitles. The post-screening talk will be in Thai with English translation.

The 2018 edition of the Venice Film Festival, which wrapped on Saturday, marked a turning point in Thai cinematic history, when first time filmmaker Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s “Manta Ray”, being named Best Film in the festival’s Orizzonti (Horizons) section.

Back in 2003, Japanese star Tadanobu Asano won the Upstream Award for Best Actor for his role in Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s “Last Life in the Universe”, but this the first time a Thai director has picked up a major prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals.

Though “Manta Ray” is the director’s first feature film, Phuttiphong is not a newcomer to Thai cinema or indeed to being recognised for his work. After graduating from Silpakorn University, Phuttiphong continued his studies at the Digital Film Academy of New York and started making short films and visual art works and his “My Image Observes Your Image if it Is Possible to Observe it” was screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. He is also known for his cinematographic contribution to Pimpaka Towira’s “The Island Funeral”, which won him the Asian New Talent Award for Best Cinematography from the 2016 edition of the Shanghai International Film Festival.

Back in 2009, Phuttiphong was selected as a participant in the Asian Film Academy’s filmmaking workshop organised by Busan International Film Festival and it was here, he says, that the idea for his own feature film was conceived.

“I wanted to do something about the border,” Phuttiphong tells XP. “I directed a video project about human identity, like an artist’s identity. When I started my film project, I decided to cast wider for the subject matter.”

The film project “Departure Day”, which later became “Manta Ray”, was first presented at the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum in 2011, before participating in Produire Au Sud workshop at the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes, France later that year.

“I heard about the situation of the Rohingya people in Myanmar and Thailand and went to Ranong province to conduct my research. My friend, who is a researcher, explained to me in depth what was happening with them. That’s why I decided to make a film about these people.

The director and cast of “Manta Ray” at the world premiere of the film at the Venice Film Festival. From left: Wanlop Rungkumjad, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, Rasmee Wayrana and Aphisit Hama.

“However, during the development process, the slant I was planning on taking changed, especially when I heard people who know nothing about the Rohingya criticising them heavily. I was shocked to see people in my society becoming ultra-nationalist and ready to attack other human beings. That is why the theme of ‘Manta Ray’ focuses more on people’s views and attitudes towards the Rohingyas. I didn’t make ‘Manta Ray’ as a film about the Rohingya crisis, as that problem is highly complex. All we know is from what we have been told by other people, and from the distorted history. I tried to focus on humans who know nothing, know no history, but still judge other human beings,” he says.

Despite its main character being a Rohingya, the drama is not an ethnographic film and does not, as Phuttiphong says, provide information on the Rohingya crisis.

“I am not a humanist nor a social worker. I tried to avoid turning the story into another soapy drama. I prefer to tell this story through my film language,” he explains.

Because of the inherent difficulties faced by independent filmmakers in Thailand, it took Phuttiphong eight years to get started on the film.

“I was lucky in that many people helped me. But what really helped this project was my short film ‘Ferris Wheel’.”

The awardwinning film “Manta Ray” starrring s Wanlop Rungkumjad, right, as the fisherman, and Aphisit Hama, left, as Thongchai, reflects the relationship between homeowners and illegal immigrants in the real world.

In 2015, Phuttiphong was chosen by the Busan International Film Festival as a participant in the Colour of Asia project for which four young Asian filmmakers were assigned to make a short film under the mentoring of Asian auteurs such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Naomi Kawase. With funding support from the programme, Phuttiphong made ‘Ferris Wheel’, which went on to become a film festival hit and earned a special mention award from the Singapore International Film Festival. Moreover at the end of the Busan International Film Festival 2015, Phuttiphong was chosen by the Colour of Asia project as a recipient of financial support from China’s video hosting service Youku to make his first feature film and on top of that, the success of “Ferris Wheel” attracted veteran French producer Philippe Avril to join the Thai team of producers Mai Meksawan, Jakrawal Nilthamrong and Chatchai Chaiyon.

“Originally the film was supposed to have two parts,” Phuttiphong explains. “It was the story of a Burmese immigrant who crosses the Moei river to come to Thailand and the tale of a stranger who is found on the shores of the Andaman. As I had already used the Burmese immigrant idea for ‘Ferris Wheel’, I decided that in my first feature film, I would focus on the man who is found on the shore.”

Of the change of title from “Departure Day” to ‘Manta Ray’, the director says: “Manta rays keep moving. They wander all over Andaman Sea and know no boundaries. It fits with the idea of the film.”

“Manta Ray” tells the story of a local fisherman (Wanlop Rungkumjad) who discovers an injured man (Aphisit Hama) in the forest. The fisherman rescues the stranger, who doesn’t speak a single word. He later calls the stranger “Thongchai” after Thai superstar Thongchai “Bird” McIntyre. One day, the fisherman mysteriously disappears from Thongchai’s life. Thongchai meets Saijai (Rasmee Wayrana), the fisherman’s ex-wife, and bit by bit, Thongchai begins to take over his friend’s life.

Wanlop is a familiar face in Thai independent film and has appeared in such award-winning outings as Sivaroj Kongsakul’s “Eternity”, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s “36” and Pimpaka Towira’s “The Island Funeral”.

After the mysterious disappearance of the fisherman, the stranger, right, Aphisit Hama, starts to take over his life, and also his wife, played by mor lam singer Rasmee Wayrana.

“In 2012, I made a pilot film for the financiers, and asked Wanlop to be in it. I saw him in ‘Eternity’ and liked him a lot. When we actually started the production of ‘Manta Ray’ in 2017, we decided that this character had to be played by him.

“We couldn’t use a Rohingya actor for the part of Thongchai as this would have been illegal. Aphisit is from Sai Buri in Pattani province and came along to our casting call. He has always felt an outsider in Thai society, and that’s the reason we chose him to play this role”

Rasmee Wayrana is an internationally known mor lam singer. And even though she has no acting experience, Phuttiphong chose her to play the role of Saijai, the fisherman’s wife. “We wanted someone who can sing. I saw her on YouTube and I liked her a lot, so we tried hard to track her down and convince her to be in this film.”

Production was completed last October and earlier this year came the unexpected though welcome news that the film has been selected for the Orizzonti competition at Venice.

“I had no expectations at all and I certainly didn’t expect it to come this far. It’s unbelievable that the film was selected for Venice,” says the director.

“Manta Ray” had its world premiere on September 7, the penultimate day of festival and despite many people having already left Lido, the film still got a good buzz.

“My film was the last in the Orizzonti section to be screened. There were not very many people in the audience, but we got good feedback. The festival staff told me that many people waited back to listen to the Q&A, perhaps because they were confused by the story.”

And the very next day, Phuttiphong learnt that he had become the first Thai to win a prize from the festival. “I didn’t expect it to win. I was very excited. My producer might have had an inkling that it could win but to me it came completely out of the blue and I hadn’t prepared a speech!”

After its huge triumph in Venice, “Manta Ray” is continuing its journey, screening at the Toronto, San Sebastian, Vancouver and Busan film festivals in the coming weeks.

“I hope that the film will have its theatrical release in Thailand very soon, perhaps next year.” he says.

His father, Raem Woratham, 85, also a former actor, said doctors had called him at 2am to say death was imminent, but he didn’t reach Nakornping Hospital in time to say a last goodbye.

Raem said he was prepared for the worst, having been told when Warut was first admitted that he had 50 per cent chance of survival.

Actor-TV host Maethanee “Nino” Buranasiri and two other friends from show business were with Warut when he died.

Maethanee, reportedly in tears, helped hospital staff move Warut’s body to the morgue before leaving the hospital.

Another friend, singer Somprasong “Tum” Singhawanawat, posted on Facebook that Warut had been pronounced dead at 2.40am.

Raem said prayers would be recited at Wat Phra Singh for seven days and the cremation would be held after 100 days.

Warut suddenly collapsed soon after returning home to Ban Phae Huai Khwang in Hang Dong district

from a TV show taping in Lamphun.

He underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation at Hang Dong Hospital and was then transferred to Nakornping Hospital.

Warut was born in Bangkok on September 17, 1969. After graduating from Bangkok Christian College, he continued his studies in aviation in England.

He got into show business in 1988 and immediately found fame with his first movie, “Khu Kham” (“Ill-fated Love”), in which he played an idealistic Japanese soldier in a World War II drama set in Thailand.

His portrayal of Kobori won him a Phra Saraswati award, also known as the Tukkata Tong (Golden Doll).

In 1992 he won a Golden Television Award for his role in the drama series “Nai Fan” (“In Dreams”).

Warut also hosted TV shows.

He and his common-law wife, Jessadawan Chantaeng, had a son, Anachak Woratham, before they separated.

Warut later revealed he had another son in New Zealand, by a previous wife.

With entertainment jobs dwindling due to his drinking problem, Warut retired from the business last July to focus on his coffee shop-restaurant in Hang Dong, Ban Warut (Warut’s Home).

He’d been alcohol-free for more than six months and was recently invited to join the cast of another TV show.

He also spoke about the hazards of alcohol at public events for the district public health office.

The movie, about a young novice about to take her final vows and a priest sent by the Vatican to probe the death of a young nun in Romania, unseated another Warner hit — “Crazy Rich Asians” — which had taken the No. 1 spot at the box office for three weeks in a row, box office tracker Exhibitor Relations said Monday.

“We knew heading into the weekend that anticipation for ‘The Nun’ was extremely high across multiple demos, but these results surpassed all our expectations,” Jeff Goldstein, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros., told Variety.

Vigilante action film “Peppermint,” starring Jennifer Garner as a mother seeking revenge against the drug cartel she blames for killing her husband and daughter, grabbed the number two spot with $13.4 million in ticket sales.

“Crazy Rich Asians,” with its nearly all-Asian cast led by Henry Golding and Constance Wu, came in third with $13.1 million.

Another Warner film, “The Meg,” came in fourth with $6.1 million in ticket sales. It stars Jason Statham as a rescue diver confronting a huge, prehistoric shark.

In fifth spot was Sony thriller “Searching,” starring John Cho as a man desperate to find his missing teenage daughter. It took in $4.6 million.

Rounding out this weekend’s top 10 were:

“Mission: Impossible — Fallout” ($3.9 million)

“Christopher Robin” ($3.4 million)

“Operation Finale” ($2.9 million)

“BlacKkKlansman” ($2.6 million)

“Alpha” ($2.5 million).