ปฏิทินพระราชทาน(‘royal calendar’)

The Appeals Court yesterday upheld a two-year jail sentence for a man charged with lèse-majesté for distributing a calendar featuring a cartoon duck. The 2021 desk calendar, published by the Khana Ratsadon pro-democracy protest group, was titled ปฏิทินพระราชทาน (‘royal calendar’), in what the police claimed was an attempt to imitate an official royal publication.

The lèse-majesté charge related to five of the calendar’s cartoons, illustrating the months of January, March, April, May, and October. (The images cannot be reproduced or described, as this would constitute a repetition of the offence.) The man was arrested on New Year’s Eve 2020, and sentenced on 7th March 2023, though he was granted bail during the appeals process. He did not attend court yesterday, and was sentenced in absentia.

This is the fourth calendar to be confiscated by the Thai authorities in recent years. Wall calendars featuring photographs of former prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawawtra were seized in 2018 and 2016. In 2010, a wall calendar by the beer company Leo was accused of promoting alcohol in contravention of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

Amazing Stoner Movie Fest 4

The fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4) will take place at Cinema Oasis in Bangkok from 7th to 10th November, with simultaneous screenings both inside and outside the cinema. The festival’s Holy War Zone strand, part of its Shorts Programme (โปรแกรมหนังสั้น), includes two Thai films that feature archive footage of political unrest: Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole and Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love. Both films are also included in this year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

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. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024.

Black Hole is a surreal black-and-white film in which a young son discovers that his father, a corrupt military officer, has sold citizens’ digital data for personal gain. The film links this family conflict with anti-military demonstrations in modern Thai history, with footage from 14th October 1973, 6th October 1976, and the student protests that began in 2020. It was also screened in the Tech Tales Youth programme at the 27th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27).

If the Air Has Memories

Walai Buppha’s new documentary If the Air Has Memories (หากอากาศมีความทรงจำ) will be screened today at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition commemorating the Tak Bai incident, when seventy-eight protesters suffocated to death on 25th October 2004 while being transported to a military camp. Today is the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy.

After many years, seven former police and military officers were eventually charged with the murder of the Tak Bai protesters. However, no attempt has been made to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them, and at midnight tonight, the twenty-year statute of limitations will expire, meaning that they cannot be prosecuted.

Walai’s one-hour documentary is the first film to give a voice to the families of the Tak Bai victims. One relative, for example, says that “we kept quiet, memory never goes away. We’d just get used to it.” He also asks why the protesters were “loaded on the truck and stacked up” like animals.

The film is not yet complete, and is screening today under its working title. It was first shown on 20th October at Hope Space in Bangkok, under its eventual subtitle, 20 Years Later, as part of the 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’) exhibition.

Its final release title, Along the Road, refers both to the route along which the victims were transported twenty years ago, and the ongoing journey of the relatives in coming to terms with what happened. This title is also a reference to the long-running legal campaign for justice and accountability, which is still, two decades later, a journey without an ending.

The 100 Best Movies of All Time

The 100 Best Movies of All Time, a magazine published by A360 Media earlier this year, lists 100 classic films, though only six are foreign-language titles. The list is very mainstream, which is hardly surprising as A360 is a rebranding of American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer and other supermarket tabloids.

Short Film Marathon 28

The 28th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 28) will take place in December at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. As a prelude, all of the films submitted will be screened in alphabetical order in this year’s online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), between 29th October and 4th December.

There were more than 600 submissions this year. A few of the highlights include Vichart Somkaew’s documentary 112 News from Heaven on 29th October (previously screened at Phatthalung Micro Cinema 0.5, the Doc Club Festival, and Vichart Movie Collection), Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole on 31st October (previously shown at Tech Tales Youth), Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love on 1st November (previously screened at this year’s Wildtype), Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s Comedy Against Dictatorship also on 1st November, Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film on 7th November (also previously screened at Wildtype), Vichart’s The Poem of the River (บทกวีแห่งสายน้ำ) on 8th November, and Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear (another Wildtype film) on 12th November.

Tak Bai Can’t Breathe

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. Walai Buppha’s documentary 20 Years Later features interviews with the families of the victims. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Yesterday evening, performance artist Jakkrapan Sriwichai lay in seventy-eight different positions, his hands bound behind his back, at Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai (photographed by Prachatai). His performance, Tak Bai Can’t Breathe (ตากใบหายใจไม่ออก), memorialised the seventy-eight protesters who died of suffocation, and highlighted the urgent need to enforce the arrest warrants of the men accused of their murder.

Other events commemorating the twentieth anniversary include 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’), #ตากใบต้องไม่เงียบ (‘Tak Bai must not be silenced’), Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน), Takbai 20th Year Memorization (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ), and Sol Bar Talk Special (คืนนี้ ไม่มีความยุติธรรม ให้ตากใบ). Previous exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ), รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), and Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

20 Years Later

“Memory never goes away.”

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Walai Buppha’s one-hour documentary 20 Years Later was originally scheduled to premiere on 19th October at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition, but Teerawat’s short film was shown instead. 20 Years Later therefore had its first screening on 20th October at Hope Space in Bangkok, to an audience of around a dozen people, as part of the 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’) exhibition.

Just as Teerawat’s film is the first to dramatise the events of Tak Bai, Walai’s is the first documentary to give a voice to the families of the victims. One relative, for example, says that “we kept quiet, memory never goes away. We’d just get used to it.” He also asks why the protesters were “loaded on the truck and stacked up” like animals.

The film is not yet complete—the version shown at Hope Space had no opening titles or end credits—and 20 Years Later will ultimately be its subtitle. Its final release title, Along the Road, refers both to the route along which the victims were transported twenty years ago, and the ongoing journey of the relatives in coming to terms with what happened. This title is also a reference to the long-running legal campaign for justice and accountability, which is still, two decades later, a journey without an ending. The film will also be shown on 4th November at TK Park in Narathiwat, under its working title, If the Air Has Memories (หากอากาศมีความทรงจำ).

A five-minute extract from 20 Years Later will be screened today at the Takbai 20th Year Memorization (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ) event, hosted by the embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok. Previous exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ), รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), and Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

Central Park Five

Donald Trump is being sued for libel by the men known as the Central Park Five, whose convictions for rape and attempted murder were overturned in 2002. Their joint defamation lawsuit, filed yesterday, seeks at least $75,000 in damages.

The five men, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise, were accused of attacking Trisha Meili in New York’s Central Park on 19th April 1989. They made videotaped confessions, though they later pleaded not guilty. Their confessions were later deemed to have been coerced by the NYPD.

Speaking during a debate with fellow presidential candidate Kamala Harris on 10th September, in a live broadcast on ABC News, Trump incorrectly stated that the five men “pled guilty.” He also falsely claimed that they “killed a person ultimately”.

Trump was successfully sued for libel last year by E. Jean Carroll. However, Trump’s own libel suits—filed against Bill Maher, Timothy L. O’Brien, Michael Wolff, Bob Woodward, The New York Times, ABC, and CNN—have all been unsuccessful.

Tak Bai

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Teerawat Rujenatham’s powerful short film Tak Bai also includes Tak Bai footage, which is played during the end credits, and the final images are shots of the shrouded bodies of the victims. But what makes Teerawat’s film unique is that, for the first time, he dramatises the brutal events of that day. Actors playing Tak Bai protesters are shown being stacked on top of each other in the back of a truck, and we see one man in closeup as he struggles to breathe, emphasising the suffocating claustrophobia endured by all those held captive.

Teerawat’s film was shown on 19th October at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition. According to one of the organisers of the event, the Tak Bai victims’ relatives in the audience found Teerawat’s film hard to watch. It was screened unexpectedly, instead of the advertised film, Walai Buppha’s documentary 20 Years Later. Tak Bai will be shown today at the Sukosol Hotel in Bangkok as part of the one-day #ตากใบต้องไม่เงียบ (‘Tak Bai must not be silenced’) event. It will also be shown at the embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok tomorrow at the Takbai 20th Year Memorization: Fighting Against Impunity and Upholding the Rule of Law (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ การต่อสู้กับการลอยนวลพ้นผิดและการธำรงไว้ซึ่งหลักนิติธรรม) event, at the Sol Bar Talk Special: Movie Night (คืนนี้ ไม่มีความยุติธรรม ให้ตากใบ) in Bangkok on 25th October, and at Patani Artspace on 25th October at the Genab 20 Tahun Peristiwa Tak Bai (‘20 years since Tak Bai’) event.

Tak Bai was previously screened at the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition last year. Other exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก), and 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in Teerawat’s film, and in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

Imago

Harit Srikhao’s exhibition Imago opened at Bangkok CityCity Gallery on 12th October, and runs until 30th November. Its title describes the final stage of an insect’s metamorphosis into an adult, reflecting the artist’s own maturity. Harit has also undergone a process of art therapy, and the resulting sense of empowerment—like an insect’s emergence from its pupal case—made Imago possible.

The exhibition includes a video installation, also titled Imago, which combines photography with stop-motion animation. The exhibition leaflet refers to “surrendering the autonomy of one’s own image and the struggle in reclaiming it,” a reference to intimate footage of Harit and his former partner and collaborator, Thunska Pansittivorakul. After their relationship ended, Thunska used this explicit material unilaterally in his documentary Avalon (แดนศักดิ์สิทธิ์).

Harit has now taken back control of this representation of his past, by inserting a graphic video clip—which appeared at the beginning of Avalon—into Imago. The installation also includes screenshots of threatening emails that Harit received about the explicit footage, which he printed out and cut into paper butterflies, turning toxic memories into art that symbolises his independence.

These paper butterflies also feature on the cover of Window, a CD single (limited to 300 copies) featuring music from the Imago soundtrack. One of Harit’s previous exhibitions, Whitewash, was censored by the military in 2017, inspiring Aditya Assarat’s Sunset, a segment of the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand. Harit has codirected the documentaries Homogeneous, Empty Time (สุญกาล) and sPACEtIME (กาลอวกาศ).

Resistant with Style

Resistant with Style [sic], an exhibition of t-shirts with political slogans from the Museum of Popular History’s collection, opens today at The Fort in Bangkok and runs until 23rd October. A similar collection of t-shirts was included in the Never Again exhibition in 2019.

Infringes

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Birth of Golden Snail (กำเนิดหอยทากทอง) will be shown at Bangkok Kunsthalle as part of Infringes, a programme of short films curated by Komtouch Napattaloong. Infringes begins on 23rd October, and runs until 22nd December.

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 Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 23). Chulayarnnon discussed the film in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

Bangsaen Film Festival 2024

The Bangsaen Film Festival will take place at Burapha University from 17th to 19th October. Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s recent documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) is the event’s opening film. The closing film is Ing K.’s Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย). Ing’s Dog God (คนกราบหมา) will be screened as part of the Lan Film strand on 18th October.

Breaking the Cycle is a groundbreaking fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and fall of the progressive Future Forward party. It has previously been shown at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla, and will be screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya later this month.

Banned in 2012, Shakespeare Must Die was released in Thailand only after Ing appealed to the Supreme Court. Dog God (the director’s cut of My Teacher Eats Biscuits) was also released earlier this year after a long ban, and Ing discussed both films in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

Amanda Montell’s aim in Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language is to encourage and empower women “to reclaim a language that for so long has been used against us.” Wordslut, published in 2019, is not the first book to show how gender-neutral terms have been transformed into sexist insults: Jane Mills did so in Womanwords thirty years previously. And the notion of reappropriating those pejoratives is older still: Germaine Greer attempted to reclaim the c-word, for example, in the early 1970s. Mills and Greer are not cited in Wordslut (and the book has no bibliography), though Montell did interview Deborah Cameron, author of Feminism and Linguistic Theory.

Montell begins her book by calling for “a language revolution”, though her ultimate conclusion is more measured. She argues that reappropriation is a gradual process: “A word doesn’t have to lose its negative meanings completely to be considered reclaimed. The path to reclamation is almost never that smooth... As long as the positive varieties of a word steadily become more common, more mainstream, by the time the next generation starts learning the language, they will pick up those meanings first.” The book’s title is itself a reappropriation of ‘slut’, though Montell doesn’t mention Katharine Whitehorn’s pioneering self-identification with that word sixty years ago.

6th October Filmography

This week marks the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 Thammasat University massacre. The tragic event has been referenced in more than fifty films and videos, which are all listed in this filmography. Many of these titles are discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, which features a comprehensive survey of Thai political cinema.

งานรำลึก 48 ปี เหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลาฯ 2519(‘commemorating the 48th anniversary of 6th Oct. 1976’)

This week, Thammasat University will commemorate the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre. A pop-up exhibition, ต่างความคิดผิดถึงตาย (‘deadly misconceptions’), will be held at Thammasat’s Sri Burapha Auditorium from tomorrow until 6th October. (A documentary with the same title was released on DVD in 2011.) At the same time, Thammasat’s Pridi Banomyong Library will host 6 ตุลาฯ กระจกส่องสังคมไทย (‘6th Oct., mirror of Thai society’), an exhibition exploring the wider context of the event. (These exhibitions were scheduled to open today, but as of this afternoon the library display was cordened off and the auditorium was closed.)

Three short documentaries will be screened at Thammasat on 5th October. Respectfully Yours (ดวยความนบถอ), directed by Patporn Phoothong and Puangthong Pawakapan, features interviews with families of massacre victims. For The Two Brothers (สองพนอง), Patporn and Teerawat Rujenatham interviewed relatives of the two young men were hanged by police for campaigning against the return of Thanom Kittikachorn from exile. In Manussak Dokmai’s Don’t Forget Me (อย่าลืมฉัน), archive footage of 6th October is accompanied by narration from a documentary on the Mlabri tribe, providing an ironic counterpoint to the violent imagery.

There will also be an exhibition by the Museum of Popular History at Thammasat on 6th October, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’). Elsewhere in Bangkok, another 6th October photography exhibition, ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’), will open at Hope Space tomorrow. The Two Brothers will be screened there on the opening day.

Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Tarantino’s debut film Reservoir Dogs is screening at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok this month, on 3rd, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 27th, and 29th October. It was last shown in Bangkok a decade ago, at Jam in 2014.

Wildtype 2024

Wildtype, the annual season of short films programmed by Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, and Sasawat Boonsri, returns this week. After being held largely online due to the coronvirus pandemic in 2021, and taking place in a few provinces in 2022, the event expanded significantly in 2023, with screenings at ten venues around the country. This year, fifty-nine films are being shown in Bangkok and at microcinemas throughout Thailand.

Highlights this year include Koraphat Cheeradit’s ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! (ฉันแต่งงานกับปัจจุบัน ช่วยตัวเองด้วยเมื่อวาน และมีเพศสัมพันธ์กับวันพรุ่งนี้), Kawinnate Konklong’s Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), and Piyanat Lamor’s Come from Away (กลับบ้าน). ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! is showing in the Exper programme of experimental films at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 5th October. Unfortunately and Come from Away are both included in the U-Dawn Genesis programme, screening at the same venue on 6th October. The Exper programme will also be shown at Loftster in Korat on 22nd October, at Alien Artspace in Khon Kaen on 25th October, at Chiang Mai University on 26th October, and at Noir Row Art Space in Udon Thani on 27th October. The U-Dawn Genesis programme will be shown at Loftster on 23rd October, at Noir Row Art Space on 26th November, at Alien Artspace on 27th October, and at CMU On 29th October.

...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! begins with a young man stumbling around in a woodland. The aimless protagonist is filmed in a continuous take, with double-exposures constantly fading in and out. Birdsong and other bucolic, ambient sounds soon give way to a non-diegetic locomotive on the soundtrack, which gradually rises to a crescendo. Visually, this is matched by bursts of rapid-fire shots, each lasting for only a single frame, that are perceived only subliminally. Some of these inserts are faux-naïf: white doves and heart emojis, symbolising peace and love. Other flash frames are more extreme: Koraphat juxtaposes sex and violence in split-second montages of anatomical drawings, erections, Ukrainian war casualties in Bucha, Nazi troops, and riot police firing water cannon at Thai protesters.

Unfortunately dramatises the ideological gap between generations, as a royalist father files a lèse-majesté charge against his daughter’s girlfriend, Bam, after she attends a protest calling for reform of the monarchy. The man tells his daughter: “I used the law to protect the King from defamation. Unfortunately, the person was Bam.” His dialogue evokes a comment from former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who dismissed dozens of civilian casualties in a BBC interview: “unfortunately, some people died”. Unfortunately and ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! were both shown in last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Come from Away features a montage of found footage, including clips from TV news broadcasts of Thaksin Shinawatra and Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse returning to Thailand after both had spent many years abroad. Former prime minister Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, and has continued his divisive and influential role in Thai politics. Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s short film แฟ้มรวมภาพทักษิณกลับไทย (‘dossier of pictures of Thaksin’s return to Thailand’) also featured TV news coverage of Thaksin’s arrival. Vacharaesorn is one of the sons of King Rama X, and his return this year has prompted speculation about the royal succession. Come from Away juxtaposes the privileged, state-sanctioned returns of Thaksin and Vacharaesorn with the fates of political refugees such as Wat Wanlayangkoon who fled the country after facing lèse-majesté charges and cannot return.

The U-Dawn Genesis programme also features four short dramas that include very brief footage of political violence and protest. Buariyate Eamkamol’s Isekai (อิเซไก), a science-fiction tale of a young couple breaking up, shows victims of the 2010 military crackdown lying in the road. Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear, about the family of a Thai lawyer who was forcibly disappeared, opens with a solarised clip of Bangkok riot police firing water cannon at student protesters in Siam Square on 16th October 2020. In Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love, a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, a Songkran water fight escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre. In Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film, a robotic voiceover narrates a dream in which a brutal warlord kills villagers with a sword because they ‘disrespect’ him by not addressing him as their king, and the film includes a short silent video clip of Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul in 2020 reading a manifesto calling for reform of the monarchy.

Breaking the Cycle

Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s recent documentary Breaking the Cycle (อำนาจ ศรัทธา อนาคต) will be shown at A.E.Y. Space in Songkla on 5th October. Aekaphong will take part in a Q&A after the screening. The film, a groundbreaking fly-on-the-wall account of the rise and fall of the progressive Future Forward party, will also be shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 19th and 24th October, as part of its Lost and Longing (แด่วันคืนที่สูญหาย) season.

ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’)

The Museum of Popular History will stage an exhibition at Thammasat University on 6th October, to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre that took place there on 6th October 1976. The exhibition, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’) at Sri Burapha Auditorium, will examine the long-term causes of the massacre, particularly the anti-Communist propaganda prevalent in the media during the 1970s. Using newspapers and posters from the period, the exhibition will highlight the language and imagery used to demonise the Thammasat students. (Many of the items will also be shown at a similar one-day exhibition, October Stories: Uprising and Strike Back, at Srinakharinwirot University on 17th October.)

Books and supplements related to the 14th October 1973 protests will also be on display, as will the contents of the กล่องฟ้าสาง (‘box of dawn’), a ‘museum in a box’ released in 2021. The poster Just Because You Can’t See It, Doesn’t Mean It Didn’t Happen features outlines of the bodies of the two men hanged for protesting against Thanom Kittikachorn’s return from exile. Ladkrabang Politics, a group of students from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology in Ladkrabang, painted a silhouette of a hanged student—Hangman—alongside a list of the names of the victims of 6th October. Hangman will be displayed with a folding chair propped up against it, in a reference to a much-reproduced Neal Ulevich photograph of the massacre.

Hope Space

Hope Space in Bangkok will commemorate the anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University with the ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’) exhibition from 2nd to 27th October. The show features photographs of the events of 1976, and of the 14th October 1973 protest. Contact sheets will be displayed on tables for examination via a loupe. A photocopy of a complete edition of the infamous 6th October 1976 issue of Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) will also be on display.

Patporn Phoothong and Teerawat Rujenatham’s short documentary The Two Brothers (สองพี่น้อง) will be screened on the opening day. Silenced Memories (ความทรงจ ไรเสยง), directed by Patporn and Saowanee Sangkara, will be shown on 13th October.

On show alongside the Thammasat exhibition is 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’), a photography exhibition commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Tak Bai incident, including a large image of the protesters displayed on an easel. Walai Buppha’s new Tak Bai documentary 20 Years Later will be shown on 20th October, the day after its premiere at TK Park in Narathiwat.

Indelible Memory: 20 Years Tak Bai

This year is the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

The government prohibited the broadcasting of video footage of the incident, though in defiance of the ban, the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD—ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’)—with its October–December 2004 issue (vol. 2, no. 4). The footage is also included in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: Thunska Pansittivorakul’s This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) and Prempapat Plittapolkranpim’s 18 Years. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

In 2023, Patani Artspace held the รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’) exhibition, the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition took place at Silpakorn and Thammasat universities, and Manit Sriwanichpoom’s Tak Bai paintings were shown at the Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก) exhibition. Heard the Unheard featured the personal possessions of seventeen people who died at Tak Bai—including a ฿100 banknote retrieved from the body of a sixteen-year-old boy, Imron—displayed alongside recollections from the victims’ relatives.

Earlier this year, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary, the seventeen artefacts were split between two exhibitions: Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่) at SEA Junction, and Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) at the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. The items on display were also photographed in Tak Bai (ลิ้มรสความทรงจำ), edited by Kusra Kamawan Mukdawijitra.

Next week, an expanded version of Indelible Memory will open at TK Park in Narathiwat, where it will be on display for the entire month of October. This exhibition has a particular sense of urgency, as prosecutions for the unlawful killings are finally under way, just weeks before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires. It will include the premiere of 20 Years Later, a documentary directed by Walai Buppha, on 19th October. The film will also be shown on the following day at Hope Space in Bangkok.

Tak Bai photographs were also shown at the Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน) exhibition in 2022. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim, and is reproduced in his book The Patani Art of Struggle (سني ڤتاني چاراو او سها). It was first installed, a few days after the massacre, at Prince of Songkla University in Pattani, and the grave markers were accompanied by rifles wrapped in white cloth. In 2017, it was recreated at Patani Artspace and then mounted on a plinth containing Pattani soil at the Patani Semasa (ปาตานี ร่วมสมัย) exhibition in Chiang Mai.

Two further installations—Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม)—both include lists of the Tak Bai victims’ names. Photophobia, 78, and Violence in Tak Bai were all included in the Patani Semasa exhibition. (The exhibition catalogue gives Violence in Tak Bai a milder alternative title, Remember at Tak Bai.)

Taklee Genesis

“Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

Time travel, dinosaurs, kaiju monsters, zombies, cavemen, the Cold War, a dystopian future, and the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University: Chookiat Sakveerakul somehow weaves all of these elements into his science-fiction epic Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), released earlier this month. It’s a hugely ambitious project, and a million miles away from the director’s earlier films such as Love of Siam (รักแห่งสยาม) and 13 Game of Death (13 เกมสยอง).

In a prologue that takes place in May 1992 (an unspoken reference to ‘Black May’), a young girl witnesses “dead bodies falling from the sky.” These are students who died during the Thammasat tragedy, their bodies teleported by the Taklee Genesis device, a time machine that can create alternate realities. As one character says: “Taklee Genesis was used to cover up a massacre.”

When the girl, Stella, grows up, she learns that her father was a CIA agent involved in the development of the Taklee Genesis. One of the project’s test subjects, Lawan, was transformed into a forest-dwelling spirit, like the monkey ghost in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), another supernatural personification of the legacy of the Cold War.

Stella and her friend Kong use the Taklee Genesis to travel back in time to Thammasat on 6th October 1976, after Kong discovers that he is one of the massacre victims who fell from the sky. Chookiat recreates the violence of that day, showing Red Gaur militiamen gunning down students. A young boy stands alone on a balcony laughing at the carnage, in a reference to a smiling onlooker in a photograph by Neal Ulevich. (The artist Khai Maew created a model of the child, which he called Happy Boy.)

Thanks to the Taklee Genesis, Kong has the chance to fight back against the vigilantes who have stormed the campus. This fantasy scenario, in which a Thammasat victim is given the agency to tackle his potential killers, is similar to the alternate history narrative in Preecha Raksorn’s comic strip Once Upon a Time at..., in which the victim in Ulevich’s photograph escapes from his assailant.

Discussion of the Thammasat massacre was suppressed for years, not by the fictional Taklee Genesis device, but instead by successive military governments. Today, it’s primarily through photographs of the event, particularly the famous image by Ulevich, that the incident is remembered. In one of the film’s most powerful moments, Kong takes a roll of film from the camera of his Thammasat classmate and gives it to Stella, telling her: “Make sure we’re not forgotten.”

The Thammasat massacre is a notorious incident in Thailand’s modern history, though it has very rarely been represented on screen. The 6th October scenes in Taklee Genesis are almost unprecedented: the only previous attempt to dramatise the brutality of the event was in the horror film Haunted Universities (มหาลัยสยองขวัญ), which was cut by the Thai film censors.

Perhaps the closest equivalent to Taklee Genesis is Sunset at Chaophraya II (คู่กรรม ภาค ๒), which ended with a similarly realistic and graphic recreation of another massacre, 14th October 1973. (Thai Cinema Uncensored includes a comprehensive analysis of the representation of Thai political history on film.)

Wilderness

“October 6th is a profound lesson,
Teaching us clearly that...
democracy can only be won by taking up arms”.

Thanaphon Accawatanyu’s new play Wilderness (รักดงดิบ) begins with a revolutionary verse, set to music. The play, divided into two parts, is set in the aftermath of two key events in Thai political history: the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University, and the student protest movement that began in 2020.

In part one, a group of students join the Communist insurgency after the Thammasat massacre, and escape into the forest. Part two features another group of students, though they’re not explicitly indentified as protesters. (Although one character says that she was destined to be part of a demonstration, as she was “in my Mom’s womb during the Black May uprising”, and her father died during that 1992 protest.)

The second part is much more ambiguous than the first, with numerous scenes that appear to be dreams caused by hallucenogenic sweets eaten by the characters. (According to the recipe they follow, the sweets should “dry in the sun for 112 hours”, and the lèse-majesté law is article 112 of the criminal code.) The dreams involve worshipping gods by chanting tongue-twisters.

As in Wilderness, Pasit Promnampol’s short film Pirab (พีเจ้น) and Sunisa Manning’s novel A Good True Thai both dramatise a student’s decision to join the Communist insurgency. A Good True Thai is particularly similar to Wilderness as, like Thanaphon’s play, it focuses on the romantic relationships between the characters.

Wilderness opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 12th September, and the final performance will be today. The script for one of Thanaphon’s previous plays, The Disappearance of the Boy on a Sunday Afternoon (การหายตัวไปของเด็กชายในบ่ายวันอาทิตย์), appears in Micro Politics alongside Pradit Prasartthong’s A Nowhere Place (ที่ ไม่มีที่), another play that refers to the 6th October massacre.

Once a Month Film

Bangkok’s GalileOasis will be screening some classic horror movies on the first weekend in October, as part of its Once a Month Film programme. The event includes two of the greatest horror films ever made: Nosferatu on 5th October, and Night of the Living Dead on 6th October.

There was a gala screening of Nosferatu at the Scala cinema in 2016, and it was also shown at Cinema Winehouse in 2018. Coincidentally, Night of the Living Dead was also screened at Cinema Winehouse, a few days before Nosferatu.

Prawit Wongsuwon:“Give me a chance to be the number one...”

Prawit Wongsuwon, leader of the Palang Pracharath Party, has pressed criminal charges against a TV presenter in relation to leaked audio clips that were broadcast on Channel 9 last week. The charges were filed at Huamak police station yesterday on Prawit’s behalf by Palang Pracharath secretary-general Paiboon Nititawan.

Danai Ekmahasawat played four clips, all featuring a man who sounded like Prawit, on his Inside Thailand (เจาะลึกทั่วไทย) show on 11th September, and a fifth clip two days later. In the first recording, the man says: “I’ve been a deputy and worked for the Prime Minister for a long time. I’ve made many accomplishments, and now I want the people to give me a chance to be the number one.” (Prawit was deputy PM under Prayut Chan-o-cha for nine years; his party was excluded from the governing coalition last month.)

When the clips were broadcast, Palang Pracharath initially dismissed them as AI deepfakes, though the charges filed yesterday seem to be a tacit admission that they are genuine. Prawit is suing for defamation and illegal distribution of a wiretapped recording, though only the “give me a chance to be the number one” conversation is cited in the police complaint.

Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs

Internal Security Operations Command, the political arm of the Thai military, has called for sales of a new book to be halted. The book in question is ในนามของความมั่นคงภายใน การแทรกซึมสังคมของกองทัพไทย, a Thai translation of Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military’s Internal Security Affairs by the distinguished academic Puangthong Pawakapan. Infiltrating Society was published in English in 2021, and the Thai translation will be released on 25th September by Same Sky Books.

ISOC posted a written statement on its Facebook page on 14th September, questioning Puangthong’s academic credentials and research methods, and challenging her findings. It also requested that the book was removed from sale (“ขอเรียนว่าการนำหนังสือและบทความทางวิชาการที่มีข้อมูลในลักษณะที่เป็นเท็จ”), and threatened legal action against the author.

Thailand’s modern political history has been dominated by military rule, with thirteen successful coups. But Puangthong argues that, even during periods of civilian government, ISOC’s influence is ever present, creating a constant atmosphere of military surveillance and propaganda. She makes the crucial point that ISOC’s activities are fundamental to the military’s agenda: “Internal security affairs, rather than external threats, have long been the raison d’être of the Thai military”.

God and the Devil:The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman

Peter Cowie is a leading authority on director Ingmar Bergman, and God and the Devil: The Life and Work of Ingmar Bergman, published last year, is his comprehensive account of Bergman’s entire career. Beginning in the late 1950s, Cowie was in regular contact with Bergman for more than thirty years, and in his critical biography he also quotes from letters and journals from the Bergman archive.

The book’s stark cover shows the personification of Death from Bergman’s masterpiece The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet). God and the Devil examines not just Bergman’s acclaimed filmography, but also his often overlooked theatre productions and his complicated private life. Cowie’s ultimate assessment of Bergman is as follows: “Forever obsessed with God and his demons, reckless in love, and relentless in his commitment to film and theatre.”

Cowie has written and published dozens of books on cinema, specialising in works on the pantheon of great directors, including an early monograph on Orson Welles (A Ribbon of Dreams). He wrote a lavish guide to the films of Akira Kurosawa, and his books on the making of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now are indispensable. His second Godfather book was published fifteen years after the first, and he also wrote a book on another 1970s classic, Annie Hall.

10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112 (‘10 things you don’t know about 112’)

Suchart Sawadsi, one of Thailand’s most respected writers, has been charged with sedition (article 116 of the criminal code) for posting a social media link to a video by iLaw, a non-governmental organisation promoting human rights. iLaw uploaded the video, 10 ข้อที่คนไม่รู้เกี่ยวกับมาตรา 112 (‘10 things you don’t know about 112’), to TikTok on 29th October 2022 as part of its No More 112 campaign, and Suchart shared it on Facebook along with a comment calling for the abolition of article 112 (the lèse-majesté law).

The King Protection Group, an ultra-royalist pressure group, filed charges against Suchart the next day. Suchart was described by David Smyth in the first issue of the journal Asiatic (2007) as “without doubt, the single most influential figure in the contemporary Thai literary world.” The King Protection Group has previously filed similar charges against other public figures, ranging from the rapper P9D to the former Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat.

Truss at Ten:How Not to Be Prime Minister

“Is it all over?”
“Yes, Prime Minister, I think it probably is.”

That exchange, between Liz Truss and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, is one of several blunt conversations documented by Anthony Seldon in Truss at Ten, which was published last month. Seldon has written profiles of every UK prime minister since John Major, and his previous book covered Boris Johnson’s aberrant premiership. Some PMs cooperate with Seldon, and others don’t; Truss and David Cameron did, while Johnson and Theresa May didn’t.

Truss at Ten features new reporting on the key moments from the shortest British government in history: the reversal of the 45p tax rate policy (“the biggest U-turn in modern prime ministerial history”), the sacking of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as his replacement. Surprisingly, given her reckless self-confidence, Truss seemed to defer to Hunt, telling her Principal Private Secretary: “Jeremy will do the domestic side and I’ll do the foreign.”

Seldon has been headmaster of three schools, and his Truss book reads like a wayward student’s end-of-term report card. He sets out ten requirements for a successful PM, and demonstrates how Truss failed at all of them. (The book is subtitled How Not to Be Prime Minister.) Making frequent historical comparisons, Seldon argues that Truss’s period of office was uniquely damaging to the country’s economy. Ultimately, he criticises her “total failure to understand the nature of leadership and the job of being Prime Minister.”

There have been other accounts of the Truss premiership, the best of which is Out of the Blue by Harry Cole and James Healey. Ben Riley-Smith’s The Right to Rule (retitled Blue Murder in paperback) also covers Truss in office, and Truss herself wrote an unapologetic memoir, Ten Years to Save the West.