Skyline FilmCasablanca

Casablanca is the May highlight of Skyline Film’s monthly outdoor movie programme. Previous Skyline screenings (including Pulp Fiction, Annie Hall, and Singin’ in the Rain) were held at River City, though this year they have a new location: the rooftop of the impressive Siamscape building in Siam Square, in the centre of Bangkok (where they showed The Graduate in January).

Casablanca will be screened there on 4th May. Arguably the greatest (and surely the most quotable) Hollywood movie of all time, it had a theatrical rerelease in 2023. It was previously shown at the Scala in 2018, at Bangkok Screening Room in 2016, and (in 35mm) at the Lido in 2007.

From Oberhausen Manifesto to New German Cinema

“The old film is dead. We believe in the new one.”
— Oberhausen manifesto

In 1962, a group of young German film directors signed a manifesto at Oberhausen calling for a revival of the country’s cinema, and a shift away from the nostalgic, escapist German films of the 1950s. The group released their first feature films in 1966, most notably Alexander Kluger’s Yesterday Girl (Abschied von gestern). By the early 1970s, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder were leading a German new wave (das neue Kino) that lasted until Fassbinder’s death in 1982.

Yesterday Girl will be shown at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 19th April, alongside Herzog’s epic Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes), as part of a programme titled From Oberhausen Manifesto to New German Cinema (จาก Oberhausen Manifesto สู่ New German Cinema). The event is organised by Doc Club, which is currently arranging pop-up screenings at various venues after the closure of Doc Club and Pub.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God was previously shown in 2020 at Bangkok Screening Room, which was the original cinema in the location that eventually became Doc Club and Pub after BKKSR was itself forced to close in 2021. The Oberhausen manifesto is reprinted in Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures.

Wildtype Masterclass no. 6CINEMINE/D จากจอสู่ใจโปรแกรม

Wattanapume Laisuwanchai’s video The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ) will be shown as part of a retrospective of the director’s work programmed by Wildtype later this month. CINEMINE/D จากจอสู่ใจโปรแกรม (‘a programme from the screen to the heart’), the sixth in Wildtype’s Masterclass series, will take place on 19th and 20th April.

Screenings will be held at arts venues arond Thailand: GalileOasis in Bangkok, A.E.Y. Space in Songkla, and Noir Row Art Space in Udon Thani. There will also be screenings organised by local film societies: Berng Nang Club in Khon Kaen, ดูหนังในห้องนั้น (‘watch a movie in that room’) in Korat, and jointly by Untitled for Film and Dude, Movie in Chiang Mai. The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts will be shown on 20th April.

In The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts, images of a man and woman are shown facing each other, yet separated. It was made in solidarity with the rapper Elevenfinger, who was jailed for possession of ping-pong bombs used in anti-government protests. The video ends dramatically with flashing images and footage of fireworks, filmed at Thalugaz protests in 2021.

The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts was first shown as a video installation at the Procession of Dystopia exhibition last year. It has also been screened at The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7) and Can’t Stop Won’t Stop.

Weekly Screening no. 34Now and Then:Experimental Animation

A programme of avant-garde animated films will be shown at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Communication Arts in Bangkok on 2nd April. Now and Then: Experimental Animation is the thirty-fourth event in the Weekly Screening series organised by Nitade CU Movie Club.

Now and Then is split into two sessions: Then is a discerningly curated selection of short films spanning the entire history of animation, and Now features animation in contemporary cinema. The key pioneers of experimental animation — Émile Cohl, Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Stan Brakhage, and Jan Švankmajer — are all represented.

Highlights include one of the very first animated films, Cohl’s Fantasmagorie (‘phantasmagoria’). Fischinger’s Optical Poem is a beautiful abstract film made with paper circles. Lye’s Free Radicals features scratches cut into the film negative. For Mothlight, Brakhage stuck moths’ wings and other materials directly onto the celluloid, to create the first literal collage film.

Masterpieces in Black and White: Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum

Arthur M. Hind’s A History of Engraving and Etching is the standard work on the subject, and Hind praises Rembrandt as a singularly accomplished master of the art form: “In the whole history of art Rembrandt stands out as one of the solitary and unapproachable personalities who have struck their own style, and stamped their influence, for good or for bad, on posterity. In his etched work his unique position is realised to an even greater advantage than in painting”.

Rembrandt’s etchings are currently on show at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, in Masterpieces in Black and White: Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum, the UK leg of a touring exhibition of works on loan from Amsterdam. The exhibition opened on 6th March at the impressive Victorian neoclassical museum, and runs until 1st June. The sixty works on display confirm Hind’s view that “in the range of his genius Rembrandt still stands alone.”

Naya Bharat ('new India')

Indian comedian Kunal Kamra is the subject of a police investigation in the state of Maharashtra after he criticised a politician from the region in his stand-up show Naya Bharat (‘new India’). Kamra performed a few satirical songs during the set, and they appeared with karaoke-style subtitles when he uploaded a video of the show to his YouTube channel on 23rd March. He was charged with defamation on the following day.

The lyrics to one song, a parody of the theme to the Bollywood film Dil To Pagal Hai (‘the heart is crazy’), include the word ‘gaddar’ (‘traitor’), in an oblique reference to politician Eknath Shinde. After footage of the performance circulated online, a mob of Shinde’s supporters ransacked The Habitat, the Mumbai studio where Kamra had recorded the live show. A spokesperson for Shinde’s political party Shiv Sena has called for Kamra’s arrest.

The Habitat was also the venue for another controversial comedy last month, when an episode of the podcast India’s Got Latent was recorded there. A guest on the show, Ranveer Allahbadia, asked a contestant: “Would you rather watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life, or would you join in once and stop it forever?” The episode was released on YouTube on 10th February, and multiple police complaints were filed against Allahbadia. India’s Supreme Court described Allahbadia’s question as obscene on 18th February, though it stopped short of filing criminal charges against him.

In a similar case in 2021, Ashutosh Dubey, an adviser to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, filed a legal complaint against comedian Vir Das in relation to a live performance in Washington D.C. Das recited his poem Two Indias at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on 12th November 2021, and uploaded it to YouTube four days later. As he predicted in the words of the poem itself, “I come from an India that will accuse me of airing our dirty laundry”.

Red’s Objects Dialogue

Fifteen years ago, on 10th April 2010, the Thai military opened fire on pro-democracy red-shirt protesters in Bangkok. The Museum of Popular History will commemorate the anniversary of the crackdown with an exhibition of red-shirt memorabilia, which opens on 29th March at the Kinjai Contemporary gallery in Bangkok.

The exhibition, Red’s Objects Dialogue (เสื้อตัวนี้สีแดง), runs until 10th April, the date on which the army launched their assault. Red’s Objects Dialogue has been conceived as an interactive exhibition, with visitors encouraged to share any memories of the protests prompted by the items on display (including an impressive collection of foot-shaped hand-clappers).

The tragic events of 10th April 2010 have also been commemorated in several previous exhibitions: Khonkaen Manifesto (ขอนแก่น แมนิเฟสโต้) and Amnesia in 2019, Future Tense in 2022, and 10 April and Beyond last year. They are also referenced in Pisitakun Kuantalaeng’s album Kongkraphan, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s short film Two Little Soldiers (สาวสะเมิน), and in the poetry collection ลุกไหม้สิ! ซิการ์ (‘burning cigar!’).

A book commemorating the victims of the massacre, วีรชน 10 เมษา (‘heroes of 10th April’) by Ida Aroonwong and Warisa Kittikhunseree, was published in 2011. Like the Museum of Popular History, the National Library of Australia also has an archive of red-shirt memorabilia.

Alexander Wang

Fashion brand Alexander Wang released an image on social media today showing a man and woman, both skimpily dressed, with a puppy. Such imagery is not unusual in fashion advertising, though in this campaign the models are shown being saluted by uniformed officers, implying a formal state occasion and making an incongruous contrast with their clothing.

Out: How Brexit Got Done and the Tories Were Undone

After All Out War, Fall Out, and No Way Out, Tim Shipman’s final Brexit book, Out: How Brexit Got Done and the Tories Were Undone, was published late last year. His quartet, a definitive account of UK politics since the country voted to leave the EU, tells “the full story of the most explosive period of domestic British politics since the Second World War.”

Out, 900 pages long, is (fortunately) the least Brexity of the four books. Spanning the entire Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak governments, it has the same insider’s access and all-sides coverage that made Shipman’s previous accounts so unique and compelling.

Shipman argues that, for better or worse, Johnson was “the most consequential figure of the period”, having achieved far more than his predecessor: “Theresa May was defined by the things she failed to do, Boris by the things he did — both excellent and execrable.” In an example from the execrable category, Johnson asked the attorney general not to inform ministers that prorogation of parliament may be illegal: “don’t spook the cabinet by talking about the litigation risk.” Shipman calls this “one of the nadirs of Johnson’s premiership.”

Shipman has consistently reported some of the most remarkable pull quotes in recent British politics. In Out, he quotes an unprecedented confrontation between a prime minister (Johnson: “Are you threatening me?”) and a senior adviser (Dominic Cummings: “Yes, I’m fucking threatening you.”) An even more extraordinary quote comes from Elizabeth II, who joked with her staff after Johnson resigned: “at least I won’t have that idiot organising my funeral now.”

Unsurprisingly, Shipman is dismissive of Johnson’s successor: “Liz Truss need not detain us long here.” He cites several Downing Street staff who describe her as “fucking mental”, and one who calls her “psychologically unfit to be prime minister.” (This recalls Alastair Campbell’s description of Gordon Brown’s “psychological flaws”, quoted in Andrew Rawnsley’s Servants of the People.) A secretary “broke down in tears” after Truss rebuked them for bringing her the wrong type of coffee (like Mugatu in Zoolander).

Before introducing Sunak at a 2024 election campaign event, Johnson asked his aides: “Why am I doing this? This guy’s a fucking cunt.” Shipman’s assessment of Sunak is also critical though, of course, more measured: “the lack of a driving political vision gave him no political cover from failures of delivery.”

Arcadia Rooftop CinemaHard-Boiled

The Rooftop Cinema programme of open-air movie screenings at Bangkok’s Arcadia bar continues this evening with John Woo’s classic Hard-Boiled (辣手神探), starring Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung. Hard-Boiled is a key example of the 英雄片 (‘hero films’) or ‘heroic bloodshed’ subgenre of gangsters-with-guns Hong Kong action thriller, the template for which was set by Woo’s A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色).

House Classics

House Samyan’s ongoing programme of classic films will feature two essential titles next month: City Lights and La haine (‘hate’). City Lights is showing on 16th and 19th April, to celebrate Charlie Chaplin’s birthday. Screenings of La haine, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, begin on 17th April. The House Classics strand was launched in 2019 with an initial selection of a dozen films, to celebrate the House cinema relocating to Samyan Mitrtown in Bangkok.

This Essay Need No Words

Dziga Vertov’s silent classic Man with a Movie Camera (Человек с кино-аппаратом) will be shown tomorrow, as part of Bangkok University’s This Essay Need No Words [sic] (บทความนี้ ... ไร้ตัวอักษร) programme of essay films. The event, the fifteenth screening in the JuBchaii (จับฉาย) series, will take place at the university’s School of Digital Media and Cinematic Arts.

Man with a Movie Camera is perhaps the greatest documentary ever made. It was also screened at Jam Ciné Club in 2017, and at The 2nd Silent Film Festival in Thailand in 2015. Previous films in the JuBchaii series have included Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) and From Forest to City (อรัญนคร).

Heat and Sweat

In his famous opening line to The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruellest month”, but in Thailand April is always the hottest month. In recognition of the sweltering summer, the Thai Film Archive in Salaya has programmed a season of classic Thai and Hollywood films titled Heat and Sweat, running from 2nd to 24th April. The season includes Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, screening on 13th and 24th April. (Rear Window was previously shown at Bangkok Screening Room in 2016.)

Arcadia Rooftop CinemaBlade Runner

Bangkok’s Arcadia bar will celebrate its third anniversary on 2nd March with a rooftop screening of its signature film, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. (Arcadia’s logo uses the same typeface as the Blade Runner poster, and some of the bar’s décor, designed by owner Todd Ruiz, was also inspired by the film.)

Arcadia also screened Blade Runner when the bar first opened, and had another screening for its second anniversary last year. Blade Runner has also been shown at other Bangkok venues: at House Samyan in 2023, at Jam in 2019, and at Bangkok Screening Room in 2017.

The 60th Year

Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Communication Arts will hold two days of film screenings in Bangkok later this week, to celebrate the faculty’s sixtieth anniversary. The 60th Year (สดุดีปีจอ) includes a screening of Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) on 27th February, followed by a Q&A with its directors Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn. Come and See (เอหิปัสสิโก) will be shown on the next day, followed by a talk by director Nottapon Boonprakob.

Both films are documentaries that challenge established institutions, and both attracted controversy in the process. Charges of sedition were filed against the makers of Breaking the Cycle, as their film — accurately and objectively — described the 2014 coup as undemocratic. When Nottapon submitted Come and See to the censorship board, they explained that they had some reservations about it. Would he mind if they rejected the film, they asked. But the Thai Film Director Association publicised the case online, and — presumably to avoid negative publicity — the censors told Nottapon that they no longer had a problem with the film.

Breaking the Cycle

Breaking the Cycle is a fly-on-the-wall account of the Future Forward party, which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in 2020. (Future Forward was founded as a progressive alternative to military dictatorship. The party came third in the 2019 election, after a wave of support for its charismatic leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, though he was disqualified as an MP by the Constitutional Court.)

The film begins in 2014 with Thanathorn’s determination to end the vicious cycle of military coups that has characterised Thailand’s modern political history. This mission gives the film its title, and Future Forward co-founder Piyabutr Saengkanokkul asks: “Why is Thailand stuck in this cycle of coups?” The documentary benefits from its extensive access to every senior figure within Future Forward. The directors were even able to film Thanathorn as he reacted to the guilty verdicts being delivered by the Constitutional Court.

The documentary ends with the caption “THE CYCLE CONTINUES”, which is sadly accurate: Future Forward’s successor, Move Forward, was dissolved by the Constitutional Court last year despite winning the 2023 election. The movement’s third incarnation, the People’s Party, will need a landslide victory in the next election to challenge the current pro-military coalition led by Pheu Thai.

Breaking the Cycle went on general release last year. It was later shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, as part of the Lost and Longing (แด่วันคืนที่สูญหาย) season. It was also screened at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla, and at the Bangsaen Film Festival at Burapha University. It was part of the Hits Me Movies... One More Time programme at House Samyan in Bangkok, and it was screened last week at Thammasat University.

Come and See

Come and See examines the practices of the Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple complex (in Pathum Thani province, near Bangkok) and its former abbot, Dhammajayo, who has long been suspected of money laundering. (Dhammakaya is a Buddhist sect recognised by the Sangha Supreme Council, though it closely resembles a cult. Come and See interviews both current devotees and disaffected former members of the organisation.)

The Dhammakaya complex itself is only twenty years old, and its design is inherently cinematic. The enormous Cetiya temple resembles a golden UFO, and temple ceremonies are conducted on an epic scale, with tens of thousands of monks and worshippers arranged with geometric precision. The temple cooperated with Nottapon, though his access was limited. Come and See doesn’t investigate the allegations against Dhammajayo, though it does provide extensive coverage of the 2016 DSI raid on the temple and Dhammajayo’s subsequent disappearance.

One of the film’s interviewees, a Buddhist scholar, hits the nail on the head when he argues that the long-running Dhammakaya scandal is not an anomaly; rather, Dhammakaya is simply a more extreme version of contemporary Thai Buddhism, which has become increasingly capitalist. Come and See also hints at the institutional corruption and hidden networks of influence that characterise the modern Thai state.

The Critics

Yesterday, a female news anchor was questioned by police on charges of defamation and violation of the Computer Crime Act, following a legal complaint by a lawyer representing former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Her home was searched by more than a dozen police officers, though she has not yet been arrested.

The online news organisation The Critics published a video on 3rd January reporting on an opinion poll in which Thaksin had been voted the world’s worst leader. (The video is still online, on the Thai Move Institute’s YouTube channel.) The anchor told police that she was not the journalist who wrote the story, and had merely been reading from a script.

The news report (which is essentially clickbait) refers to a survey on the website The Top Tens. Thaksin is indeed currently listed there as the worst leader in the history of the world, with Adolf Hitler in second place, though the voting has been manipulated by Thai netizens. (Thaksin’s entry has more than 6,000 vitriolic comments, from people who apparently believe that he was worse than genocidal dictators such as Hitler.)

There are equally hyperbolic comparisons between Thaksin and Hitler in two documentaries by Ing K. In the fourth episode of her Bangkok Joyride (บางกอกจอยไรด์) series, a protester describes Thaksin as “worse than Hitler”. This echoes a quote from Ing’s Citizen Juling (พลเมืองจูหลิง): “We talk of Hitler... But villagers, all citizens nowadays fear PM Thaksin 10 times more.” (These examples are discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

During Thaksin’s premiership, he was notorious for his use of lawsuits to intimidate his critics. Pimpaka Towira’s documentary The Truth Be Told (ความจริงพูดได้), for example, examined the charges filed by Thaksin’s Shin Corp. against media campaigner Supinya Klangnarong after she was interviewed by the Thai Post (ไทยโพสต์) newspaper on 16th July 2003. (The Thai Post was also named in the writ. This case is also covered in Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

Supinya had alleged that Shin Corp. benefitted from the policies of Thaksin’s government, and therefore that his ownership of the company represented a conflict of interest. Her book about the lawsuit, พูดความจริง (‘speak the truth’), was published in 2007, after the case was dismissed.

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop

Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love will be shown this evening at Rx Cafe in Chiang Mai. The screening is part of the Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (ไปให้สุด หยุดไม่อยู่) arts festival, which is raising awareness of the political crisis in Myanmar since the violent coup that took place there in 2021. (The festival’s Burmese title is မဆုတ်တမ်း မရပ်တမ်း.) The event began yesterday, and runs until the end of this month.

This will be Crazy Soft Power Love’s third screening this week, and its second screening today. It will also be shown in Korat this afternoon, as part of the With Love and White festival, and it was shown at เทศกาลถนนศิลปะ ครั้งที่ 22 (‘the 22nd street art festival’) in Khon Kaen on 16th February.

Crazy Soft Power Love is a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, culminating in a Songkran water fight that escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024, at the fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4), and at last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Wattanapume Laisuwanchai’s video The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ) will be shown at Rx Cafe tomorrow, also as part of the Can’t Stop Won’t Stop festival. In Wattanapume’s film, images of a man and woman are shown facing each other, yet separated. The project was made in solidarity with the rapper Elevenfinger, who is serving a prison sentence for possession of ping-pong bombs used in anti-government protests. The video ends dramatically with flashing images and footage of fireworks, filmed at Thalugaz protests in 2021.

The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts was first shown as a video installation at the Procession of Dystopia exhibition last year. It was also screened at The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7).

With Love and White

Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love will be shown tomorrow at Boonwattana School in Korat, as part of the one-day With Love and White festival of short films. This will be its second screening this week, as it was also shown at เทศกาลถนนศิลปะ ครั้งที่ 22 (‘the 22nd street art festival’) in Khon Kaen on 16th February.

Crazy Soft Power Love is a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, culminating in a Songkran water fight that escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024, at the fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4), and at last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

ภาพสุดท้ายบนผืนผ้า สงครามเย็นไม่เคยจากไปไหน(‘the final images on cloth’)

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Birth of Golden Snail (กำเนิดหอยทากทอง) will be shown in Chiang Mai on 1st March as part of The Golden Snail Series (วัฒนธรรม​หอยทากทอง), a programme of five short films by the artist that feature his golden snail motif, followed by a Q&A with Chulayarnnon. (The five films were also shown last month, at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla and Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai.)

The Golden Snail Series is the final event in the three-day ภาพสุดท้ายบนผืนผ้า สงครามเย็นไม่เคยจากไปไหน (‘the final images on cloth: the Cold War never goes away’) film festival, which begins on 27th February. The festival — organised by Dude, Movie — explores the continuing legacy of the Cold War, and will be held outdoors at Suan Anya. The films shown will be the last ones to be projected onto the venue’s cloth screen, which will soon be replaced with a more substantial screen.

Birth of Golden Snail was banned from the Thailand Biennale in 2018, and had its first public screening at the following year’s 30th Singapore International Film Festival. Its Thai premiere was at the 23rd Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 23), and it was shown last year at Infringes. Chulayarnnon discussed the film in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

The other short films in The Golden Snail Series programme are Golden Spiral (โกลเด้น สไปรัล), The Internationale (แองเตอร์นาซิอองนาล), ANG48 (เอเอ็นจี48), and How to Explain “Monument to the Fourth International” to the Dead Golden Snail (เรารักภูมิพลังวัฒนธรรมละมุนละม่อมนุ่มนิ่ม). Golden Spiral was first shown at Ghost:2561. ANG48 was first shown at Shadow Dancing, and later at Wildtype 2023, ใช้แล้ว ใช้อยู่ ใช้ต่อ (‘I’ve used it, I’m using it, I’ll keep using it’), The 27th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 27), and the Short Film Marathon 27 (หนังสั้นมาราธอน 27).

The Day the Sky Trembled

Nutchanon Pairoj, a founder member of the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration protest group, has been found guilty of lèse-majesté and sentenced to two years in prison. He was originally found not guilty by the Thanyaburi Provincial Court on 8th November 2023, though that verdict was overturned today by the Court of Appeal.

Nutchanon was one of several people in a truck that was stopped by police in Pathum Thani on 19th September 2020. They were en route to Thammasat University, intending to distribute copies of the booklet The Day the Sky Trembled (ปรากฏการณ์สะท้านฟ้า 10 สิงหา) to protesters gathered at the university. Police confiscated 45,080 copies of the booklet, and detained the occupants of the truck, though ultimately only Nutchanon was charged.

The Day the Sky Trembled — so notorious that it has become known simply as ‘the red booklet’ — contains transcripts of speeches given by UFTD protest leaders at Thammasat on 10th August 2020. Nutchanon is not quoted in the booklet, though today’s judgement convicted him of knowingly attempting to distribute material that contravened the lèse-majesté law.

เทศกาลถนนศิลปะ ครั้งที่ 22(‘the 22nd street art festival’)

Warat Bureephakdee’s short film Crazy Soft Power Love will be shown today at เทศกาลถนนศิลปะ ครั้งที่ 22 (‘the 22nd street art festival’) organised by Art Lane. The outdoor screening will take place at Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts. The event began on Valentine’s Day and finishes today.

Crazy Soft Power Love is a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, culminating in a Songkran water fight that escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024, at the fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4), and at last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

30 Years of ‘Democrazy’

One way that artists satirise Thai politics is by punning on the Thai word for democracy itself. The earliest and most common example is ‘democrazy’, highlighting the craziness of the Thai political system, which dates back thirty years. Since then, there have been more than a dozen other Thai puns on ‘democracy’.

Democrazy

The band Heavy Mod released their album Democrazy on cassette and CD in 1995. (Its Thai title was ประชาธิปไตย, which translates simply as ‘democracy’.) Democrazy was also the title of a single by another band, Dogwhine, from their EP Dog of God, released on CD in 2019. The animated music video for the song features the folding chair and hanging corpse from an infamous Neal Ulevich photograph. Democrazy (ประชาธิปไทย) is also the title of a 2020 painting by Luck Maisalee.

The fashion brand Russian Roulette designed a Demo-crazy t-shirt in 2023. Bangkok Democrazy was the strapline of the 4th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, which took place in 2004. Democrazy Theatre Studio was founded by Pavinee Samakkabutr and Thanapol Virulhakul in 2008, and the edgy Bangkok performance venue closed down in 2019.

Thunsita Yanuprom and Sarun Channiam directed the short film Democrazy.mov in 2019. In the film, a cellphone signal is jammed by a 44GHz frequency, in reference to article 44 of the interim constitution, which granted absolute power to the leaders of the 2014 coup.

Demockrazy

Duangporn Pakavirojkul directed the short film Demockrazy (ประชาทิปตาย) in 2007. The film was an immediate reaction to the 2006 coup: set in a classroom, an authoritarian teacher symbolises the coup leaders. Its title is a clever double pun on ‘crazy’ and ‘mockery’.

Demoncrazy

Ready Myth Demoncrazy was a retrospective exhibition of art by Panya Vijinthanasarn, held in 2018. Similarly, the fashion brand Plus One designed a Demo(n)cracy hat in 2023.

Dreamocracy

Parit Wacharasindhu’s book Dreamocracy (ประชาธิปไตยไม่ใช่ฝัน) was published in 2022. Parit is a People’s Party MP, and his book is a personal manifesto proposing solutions to the country’s social and economic problems.

Drunkmocracy

Warat Bureephakdee directed the short film Drunkmocracy (สุราธิปไตย) in 2023. A documentary on Thai alcohol laws, it was released online as part of the ไทยถาม (‘Thailand questions’) series by Thai Rath (ไทยรัฐ).

ประชาฉิปตาย

The song title ประชาฉิปตาย translates as ‘democracy dies’, in a particularly effective Thai-language pun. (‘Democracy’ and ‘die-ocracy’ are near-homophones in Thai.) The track is featured on the Heavy Mod album Democrazy, and it’s similar to Die mo cracy, a slogan on a t-shirt sold by the band Speech Odd last year.

Paradoxocracy

Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Pasakorn Pramoolwong’s documentary Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย) was released in 2013. (Pen-ek discussed the film at length in Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

‘Happy-ocracy’

Ing K.’s film Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย) includes a satirical parody of authoritarian propaganda: “Dear Leader brings happy-ocracy!” The line turned out to be a remarkably prescient prediction, as coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha released a propaganda song titled Returning Happiness to the Thai Kingdom (คืนความสุขให้ประเทศไทย) in 2014. (Ing discussed the film in Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

PrachathipaType

The design studio PrachathipaType was founded in 2020, and its name translates as ‘democratic typography’. The anonymous designer behind PrachathipaType also created a new typeface, PrachathipaTape (ประชาธิปะเทป), for Rap Against Dictatorship’s music video Homeland (บ้านเกิดเมืองนอน).

‘ประชาธิปตู่’

Yuthlert Sippapak’s film Nednary (อวสานเนตรนารี) features a pun on Prayut’s nickname, Tu. When a boy scout, with the same nickname as Prayut, is asked what type of democracy he wants, he replies: “ประชาธิปตู่” (‘Tu-ocracy’). (Yuthlert discussed the film in Thai Cinema Uncensored.) The period of undemocratic military government led by Prayut between 2014 and 2023 is known as ‘Prayutocracy’.

‘Thaksinocracy’

Thaksinocracy (ทักษิณาธิปไตย) describes the populist politics of Thaksin Shinawatra, prime minister from 2001 to 2006. (A slight variation, สู่ทักษิณาธิปไตย, was translated as Thaksinomics, the title of a book by Rangsan Thanapornpun published in 2005.)

‘Premocracy’

Premocracy (เปรมาธิปไตย) describes the period of quasi-democracy from 1980 to 1988, when Prem Tinsulanonda led the government as an appointed prime minister. เปรมาธิปไตย is also the title of a book by Adinan Phromphananjal, published in 2020.

‘Coupocracy’

In her book Dictatorship on Trial, released last year, Tyrell Haberkorn coined the term ‘coupocracy’ to describe the period covering the 2006 and 2014 coups.

‘Dancemocracy’

The new book Made in Thailand includes Anna Lawattanatrakul’s essay Dancemocracy as Political Expression in the 2020 Thai Pro-democracy Movement, a reference to the Dancemocracy (คณะราษแดนซ์) troupe of pro-democracy dancers and protesters. (Made in Thailand, edited by Viriya Sawangchot, also includes an interview with Pisitakun Kuantalaeng, who discusses his album Absolute Coup.)

Shifting Shadows of Identity

Shifting Shadows of Identity, an evening of short films from different regions of Thailand, presents new perspectives on Thai national identity. The event is organised by The Basement — an underground collective of emerging visual artists — and the films have been selected by Srinakharinwirot, Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Silpakorn, and Bangkok university film clubs. The screening will be held on 21st February, on the rooftop of the Apron Bar in Bangkok, and is taking place alongside the bar’s Expanding Pecel Lele programme celebrating Indonesian culture, as part of Bangkok Design Week 2025 (which runs from 8th to 23rd February).

Possathorn Watcharapanit’s Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway is one of the highlights of Shifting Shadows of Identity. Possathorn films himself with a selfie stick as he jogs around his home town, the black-and-white images accompanied by a voiceover from the director. Slowly, another image begins to emerge, gradually dissolving into view: footage of anti-government protesters gathered around a burning brazier. This scene (filmed by Voice TV) eventually replaces Possathorn’s selfie shot, and the film ends with a caption heralding the “flame of the birth of a new era.” (Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway was previously shown in the Angry Young Citizen strand of Wildtype 2022.)

Shifting Shadows of Identity will conclude with an early video piece by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Haunted Houses (บ้านผีปอบ). A documentary in which villagers perform lakorn scripts, the film plays on the link between ‘media’ and ‘medium’: the Thai collective fascination with both mass entertainment (TV soap operas) and the spirit world. (Haunted Houses was previously shown at Alliance Française in 2017, and at the Jim Thompson Art Center in 2011.)

Resonance of Revolt

Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Social Sciences will show a programme of provocative political documentaries as part of their ดูหนังกับสังวิท (‘watch movies with Social Sciences’) season. The event, Resonance of Revolt, will take place on 19th and 26th February, and includes Uruphong Raksasad’s Paradox Democracy and Vichart Somkaew’s Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy (ไตรภาคการเมืองร่วมสมัยไทย).

Paradox Democracy documents the recent student protest movement, and features clips from rally speeches by Arnon Nampa and other protest leaders, intercut with extracts from The Revolutionist (คือผู้อภิวัฒน์), a play about Pridi Banomyong staged by the Crescent Moon theatre group in 2020. The film’s working title was Paradox October, and it includes footage shot at the 6th October 1976 commemorative exhibition at Thammasat University in 2020.

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy is a portmanteau project combining three of Vichart’s recent short films: Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป), 112 News from Heaven, and The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ). The anthology’s structure reflects three eras of modern Thai politics: 1932–1957 (the establishment of democratic institutions), 1957–1992 (prolonged military dictatorship), and 1992 to the present day (liberal reforms, followed by political polarisation).

Paradox Democracy was previously shown at The 28th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 28) in Salaya. Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy was shown last year as part of ซิเนมากลางนา (‘cinema in the middle of a rice field’), a rural outdoor screening held in a rice field in Phayao. Previous ดูหนังกับสังวิท screenings have included Ing K.’s Dog God (คนกราบหมา) and Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย).

Monrak Transistor

The Thai Film Archive at Salaya will show a three-day film programme to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The event, Night @ Maya City 5, includes Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s popular classic Monrak Transistor (มนต์รักทรานซิสเตอร์) on 14th February, with screenings of other romantic films on 15th and 16th February. Monrak Transistor will be shown in a restored 35mm print, and Pen-ek will take part in a Q&A after the screening.

Monrak Transistor was last shown in 35mm at One Nimman in Chiang Mai in 2022, and it had a previous Valentine’s Day screening at Museum Siam in 2011. It was also shown at True Digital Park in 2022, and it had multiple screenings in 2018: at Bangkok Screening Room, Alliance Française, the Jam Factory, and House RCA.

Another Valentine’s-themed film programme, Fear Eat the Love, is taking place today at Bangkok University. An altogether racier Valentine’s film event, Erotica Love Film, was held in 2023.

Fear Eat the Love

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) will be shown on 13th February, as part of Bangkok University’s Fear Eat the Love [sic] programme of romantic films, on the eve of Valentine’s Day. The event, the eleventh screening in the JuBchaii (จับฉาย) series, will take place at the university’s School of Digital Media and Cinematic Arts.

Fassbinder was one of the leading figures of the 1970s German new wave (das neue Kino), and his death from a drug overdose effectively marked the end of the movement. Fear Eats the Soul was heavily influenced by Douglas Sirk’s Hollywood melodrama All That Heaven Allows, which also inspired the Todd Haynes film Far from Heaven.

Last year was Fear Eats the Soul’s fiftieth anniversary. The film has previously been screened at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok, at Bo(ok)hemian Arthouse in Phuket, and at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya.

Archival Time on Our Retina

Archival Time on Our Retina, an exhibition juxtaposing contemporary video art with archive footage, opens at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya today and runs until 1st June. It includes Taiki Sakpisit’s short film The Age of Anxiety which, with its rapid-fire editing and screeching soundtrack, captured the anxious atmosphere during the twilight of King Rama IX’s reign. The film’s English title reflects the national mood while Rama IX was hospitalised, though its original Thai title (รอ ๑๐) added another interpretation.

The Age of Anxiety was previously shown at Gallery Movie Night last year, at the 25th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 25), and at Histoire(s) du thai cinéma [sic] (‘histories of Thai cinema’). It was first screened on three occasions in 2013: on 16th February at the Lost in Utopia exhibition at Bo(ok)hemian Arthouse in Phuket, on 3rd March when that exhibition transferred to The Reading Room in Bangkok, and on 31st August at the 17th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 17).

“Books containing inciteful material...”

Israeli police raided two branches of the Educational Bookstore in Jerusalem today, seizing books and placing the chain’s two owners under arrest. According to a police statement, “detectives encountered numerous books containing inciteful material with nationalist Palestinian themes”, and the shop was accused of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.”

Specifically, the police cited the children’s book From the River to the Sea: A Colouring Book by Nathi Ngubane, whose title is an antisemitic slogan calling for the removal of the State of Israel, located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The book is a work of propaganda that entirely excludes Jewish history from the story of Palestine.

The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film FestivalNowhere Somewhere

After a long hiatus of thirteen years, the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival staged a triumphant return this year. The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7) took place from 25th January to 2nd February, at a cinema in the new One Bangkok complex. The festival’s theme this time around was Nowhere Somewhere (ไร้ที่ มีทาง), and one of its highlights was Riding the Shortbus on 27th January: a screening of the transgressive comedy Shortbus followed by a Q&A with its director, John Cameron Mitchell. (Shortbus was also shown at the 2007 Bangkok International Film Festival.)

The festival offered another chance to participate in the virtual reality version of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Conversation with the Sun (บทสนทนากับดวงอาทิตย์), which was previously shown at the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai. There were around 100 timeslots for the VR experience, all of which sold out in a matter of minutes. Viewers wearing VR headsets found themselves in a large cave, and the sun rose out of the ground into the sky. It was an overwhelming experience, and a hugely ambitious project. The film includes a shot of monarchy-reform protesters at Ratchaprasong in Bangkok (filmed on 25th October 2020), which also appears on the cover of the festival catalogue.

There was an onstage conversation between Apichatpong and Tilda Swinton, The Last Thing You Saw That Felt Like a Movie: An Encounter (ภาพสุดท้ายคล้ายหนัง บทสนทนา), on 25th January, which also featured a performance by Swinton. (Apichatpong and Swinton previously took part in a Q&A at the Thai premiere of Memoria.) Apichatpong also appeared at Dreams / Distortions / Disruptions (ฝัน / ปั่น / ป่วน), a panel discussion about the development of experimental cinema with five other directors, moderated by Chulayarnnon Siriphol, on 26th January.

A workshop gave participants the chance to make their own 16mm films, which were screened on 1st February as part of a series of events titled Before We Go. One of those who took part was the artist Oat Montien, who directed an explicit film about gay cruising. To desaturate the colour, Oat mixed his own semen into the developing fluid while processing the film. (Viewers were required to sign consent forms acknowledging that they were at least twenty years old.)

Following a call for submissions last year, more than 500 films were received. Sixty-seven titles were selected, screening in fourteen Open Call (โอเพ่น คอลล์) programmes curated by Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa and Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn. The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ) by Wattanapume Laisuwanchai was shown in Open Call no. 2, On Gazing Back at the Big Brother, an Ever-watchful Observer (การจ้องมองกลับไปยังพี่เบิ้ม (บิ๊กบราเธอร์) ผู้สังเกตการณ์ที่เฝ้าระวังอยู่เสมอ), on 25th, 27th, and 30th January. No Exorcism Film by Komtouch Napattaloong was part of Open Call no. 8, On Gazing Back at War and Its Aftermath (การจ้องมองกลับไปที่สงครามและผลที่ตามมา), on 25th–26th January and 1st February. On Gazing at the Spirit of Resistance and Its Weight (การจ้องมองดูจิตวิญญาณแห่งการต่อต้านและมวลน้ำหนักของมัน), Open Call no. 14, featured Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Nostalgia, on 25th and 29th January, and 2nd February.

No Exorcism Film was previously screened at last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), The 28th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 28), and Wildtype 2024. Nostalgia has previously been shown at Nitade Experimental Shorts, the Chiang Mai Film Festival (twice), Bangkok University, Future Fest 2023, Wildtype 2022, and The 26th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 26).

The Bangkok Experimental Film Festival — originally known as the Bangkok International Art Film Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์ศิลปะนานาชาติ กรุงเทพ) — was founded by Apichatpong and curator Gridthiya Gaweewong in 1997, which was a pivotal year for Thai cinema. The Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น) also began in 1997 (and is still going strong). 1997 also marked the start of the Thai New Wave, when Nonzee Nimibutr’s debut film Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters [sic] (2499 อันธพาลครองเมือง) broke domestic box-office records and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s debut Fun Bar Karaoke (ฝันบ้าคาราโอเกะ) premiered at the Berlinale. (Thai Cinema Uncensored describes the “confluence of events” that took place in 1997.)

The Bangkok Experimental Film Festival was last held in 2012, at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. The previous event took place in 2008, at the Esplanade cinema.