Cindy S Byrne

Maybe for the first time ever, New York's creative elite is buzzing about a Thai film director. Who is this unlikely hero of the art and fashion crowd? "I can't pronounce it," Shala Monroque confessed last night at the Monkey Bar, where she joined the likes of David Byrne, Terence Koh, Steven Klein, and Francesco Vezzoli (the last, one of the evening's cabal of hosts) at a dinner in honor ofwait for itApichatpong Weerasethakul. Weerasethakul, known to his Western friends as Joe, has emerged from total obscurity (and into semi-obscurity) thanks to his latest film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. A surrealism-shaded tale about an old man living out his final days in the country, it was awarded the Palme d'Or by Tim Burton's Cannes jury in May and is slated to hit U.S. theaters early next year. "It's a ghost story, but one that's extremely thoughtful and not really meant to be scary," explained Cindy Sherman, who just saw the film at the New York Film Festival. "It's very odd," she added, citing a much-discussed love scene involving a princess and a catfish. But for Weerasethakul, who flies home to Chiang Mai today but will be back in November, the truly strange and delightful scene was the one that had been organized for him this night in New York (and co-hosted, albeit in absentia, by Tilda Swinton and Marc Jacobs). "I didn't expect so many celebrities," he beamed. Later, he collared David Byrne for a photo op. "This is New York, where anything can happen," Weerasethakul said. "And it happened."Darrell Hartman

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