2475Dawn of Revolution

When the animation 2475 Dawn of Revolution (๒๔๗๕ รุ่งอรุณแห่งการปฏิวัติ) was released earlier this year, Prachatai reported that the film’s production company, Nakraphiwat, was paid almost ฿4 million by the army for other projects between 2020 and 2022. Yesterday, Prachatai revealed that it had received a defamation lawsuit from Nakraphiwat, alleging that Prachatai’s online article falsely implied that 2475 had been funded by the military.

The film’s credits include a long list of individual donors, some of whom gave as little as ฿100 each, though the bulk of the budget was provided anonymously. 2475 (directed by Wivat Jirotgul) tells the story of the 1932 coup from a royalist-nationalist perspective, though its makers are clearly sensitive to the suggestion that the film is an example of military propaganda.

The lawsuit was filed on 11th October, and there will be a preliminary hearing at the Criminal Court in Bangkok on 9th December. Prachatai’s report—headlined “พบเจ้าของแอนิเมชัน ‘2475 Dawn of Revolution’ รับโครงการทำสื่อแบบวิธีเฉพาะเจาะจง ‘กองทัพบก’ 11 สัญญา” (‘the maker of 2475 Dawn of Revolution took on 11 media contracts from the army’)—which was published on 15th March, is still online.

16th World Film Festival of Bangkok

The 16th World Film Festival of Bangkok (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์โลกแห่งกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 16) begins on 7th November with the Thai premiere of Sivaroj Kongsakul’s new film Regretfully at Dawn (อรุณกาล). The festival will run until 17th November.

Kriengsak Silakong, the festival’s founder, sadly died in 2022, and the Lotus award for lifetime achievement was renamed in his honour. Like the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th festivals, this year’s event will take place at CentralWorld’s SF World cinema. (The 6th, 7th, and 8th festivals were held at Paragon Cineplex; the 5th, 9th, and 10th took place at Esplanade Cineplex.)

Regretfully at Dawn is one of several recent Thai films whose protagonists are retired soldiers nearing the end of their lives. Sivaroj’s film includes flashbacks in which the main character, an elderly man called Yong, is haunted by his time in the military. The time frame is not specified, though judging by Yong’s age, he likely fought against the Communist insurgency in the 1970s.

Taiki Sakpisit’s The Edge of Daybreak (พญาโศกพิโยคค่ำ) and Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Anatomy of Time (เวลา) also feature protagonists who cannot escape the memories of their anti-Communist past, though Yong is a more sympathetic figure than the dying men in Taiki and Jakrawal’s films. Similarly, the title character in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ) confesses that he “killed too many communists”, though the film doesn’t include flashbacks to that period of Boonmee’s life.

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. The Godfather is at the top of the list, as it was in another top-100 list published this year in the Daily Mail.

Bangkok Art Biennale 2024

After Beyond Bliss (สุขสะพรั่ง พลังอาร์ต) in 2018, Escape Routes (ศิลป์สร้าง ทางสุข) in 2020, and Chaos:Calm (โกลาหล:สงบสุข) in 2022, the fourth Bangkok Art Biennale’s theme is Nurture Gaia (รักษา กายา). As in previous years, the Biennale (บางกอก อาร์ต เบียนนาเล่) is being held at multiple venues around the city, from galleries to temples. The event opened on 24th October, and runs until 25th February next year.

Taiki Sakpisit’s video installation Dream Sequence (ฝันทิพย์), showing at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, consists of static shots filmed at the house in Paris where Pridi Banomyong lived during his years in exile from Thailand until his death in 1983. The house was purchased this year by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, founder of the Future Forward party, cementing the property as a symbol of progressive politics thwarted by the establishment, and the Biennale catalogue describes Tiaki’s video as “a kaleidoscopic feast of delusion, desperation, oppression, and perpetual nightmares rooted in Thailand’s flawed democracy.”

Dispatch

Dispatch, an exhibition of photographs by R. Scott Davis, opened at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on 1st November, and runs until 1st December. Davis photographed EMS workers as they attended emergency calls and accidents, and human specimens at Bangkok’s Central Institute of Forensic Science.

Tsurisaki Kiyotaka also photographed fatal accidents and crime scenes in Bangkok, though his images focus on the victims rather than the EMS staff. The Netflix series Bangkok Breaking (มหานครเมืองลวง) dramatised the competition between the city’s various EMS teams.

War

Bob Woodward’s most recent books on presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden all have one-word titles: Fear, Rage, Peril, and now War. Woodward covered the first few months of the Biden administration in Peril, and War—released earlier this month—is his account of Biden’s responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Isreal’s war with Gaza. (He previously wrote a similar book on Barack Obama’s foreign policy, Obama’s Wars.)

Woodward’s reporting is always extraordinary—his and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal ultimately led to Richard Nixon’s resignation—but War is a remarkable book. Almost every chapter features direct quotes from secure telephone calls and private meetings between Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others.

The US intelligence services were aware of Putin’s plan to attack Ukraine, and tried several times to convince Zelensky that it would happen. Woodward reports that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a skeptical Zelensky: “we believe there is a very high risk that the Russians will re-invade your country.” Zelensky was equally dismissive when CIA director Bill Burns reiterated: “There is going to be a significant invasion of your country”. Even a week before the war began, Zelensky remained unconvinced when Vice President Kamala Harris warned him: “You face a potentially imminent invasion.”

After the 7th October 2023 attack on Isreal by Hamas, Woodward shows how Biden and his most senior diplomats were focused on seeking assurances from Netanyahu that his retaliation would be proportionate. Netanyahu insisted that “not an ounce of anything will go into Gaza to help people,” though Blinken and Biden convinced him to reconsider. As the war dragged on, Biden sought to minimise any potential escalations, and Woodward quotes at length from a wide-ranging 4th April call between Biden and Netanyahu debating an invasion of Rafah, humanitarian aid, and the hostage crisis.

Biden’s private opinion of Netanyahu is clear from War. Woodward reports that Biden called the Israeli PM “a fucking liar,” and added for good measure: “That son of a bitch Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” But it was the book’s reporting about former president Donald Trump that made more headlines: Woodward quotes Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s presidency, describing Trump as “a total fascist”. (Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly agreed with Milley in a recent New York Times interview.)

Woodward’s own assessment of Trump (who is suing him after the release of The Trump Tapes) is also unequivocal. He ended Rage by describing Trump as “the wrong man for the job” though he goes much further in War: “Donald Trump is not only the wrong man for the presidency, he is unfit to lead the country. Trump was far worse than Richard Nixon, the provably criminal president... Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.”

Chris Whipple (The Fight of His Life) and Franklin Foer (The Last Politician) have also written books on the Biden White House. Simon Shuster’s The Showman is an account of Zelensky’s presidency and the war in Ukraine.

Lazada

Today the Criminal Court in Bangkok dismissed lèse-majesté charges in relation to online videos promoting the shopping website Lazada and Nara skincare. Lazada had posted a video on 5th May 2022 featuring Thidaporn Chaokhuvieng in a wheelchair, which led to allegations that it was mocking Princess Chulabhorn and disabled people in general. Another TikTok video showed Thidaporn alongside Kittikoon Thammakitirad, who was dressed similarly to Queen Sirikit.

The video campaign was surprisingly audacious for a mainstream, market-leading company like Lazada, as lèse-majesté is rigorously enforced and the references to Chulabhorn and Sirikit were unambiguous. Two days later, Srisuwan Janya (dubbed “Thailand’s complainer-in-chief” and mocked by comedian Udom Taephanich) filed lèse-majesté charges against Thidaporn and Kittikoon, amongst others, and they were arrested on 16th June 2022.

The Criminal Court’s decision today was as surprising as the initial Lazada campaign. Previously, lèse-majesté has been broadly interpreted, though today’s judgement followed the precise letter of the law (article 112 of the criminal code). Article 112 specifies that only defamation or insults directed at the King, Queen, heir to the throne, or regent are illegal, and the court today made clear that it would only prosecute lèse-majesté cases related to those named individuals.

Therefore, as Chulabhorn is not the heir to the throne, the case against Thidaporn was dismissed, perhaps setting a precedent that criticism of some royals is not a crime. The court also ruled that the imitation of Queen Sirikit was not disrespectful, and therefore dismissed the charges against Kittikoon. Again, this was unexpected, as it seems to permit the impersonation of a senior royal, even for commercial purposes.

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 pending an appeal. He did not attend court yesterday, and was sentenced in absentia.

This is the third 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.

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.

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), Pattanapong Khongsak’s Bad Taste (โอรส) also on 31st October, 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.

Comedy Against Dictatorship features an interview with comedian Setthawut Chanpensuk, who was inspired by Rap Against Dictatorship to start a satirical stand-up comedy routine. (In one of his live sets, he takes a swig of an energy drink: “Let me have a sip of Red Bull. Ahhh, the taste of inequality.”) Bad Taste, tinted blue and set to the song Blue by Eiffel 65, features a judge who eats blue food from a dogfood bowl on the floor. The colour blue has a symbolic meaning in Thai politics, and the film implies the judge’s dog-like obedience.

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.

Cartooning the ASEAN Way of Non-Interference and Consensus

An exhibition of cartoons and comics, Cartooning the ASEAN Way of Non-Interference and Consensus (การ์ตูนภาพ วิถีอาเซียน หลักการการไม่แทรกแซงกิจการภายใน และหลักฉันทามติของประชาคมอาเซียน), opens today at SAE Junction in Bangkok and runs until 3rd November. The exhibition (and its spiral-bound catalogue) features Pornnipa Baoniaw’s comic Everything in the World Is Beautiful (ทุกอย่างในโลกล้วนสวยงาม), in which she compares countries in Southeast Asia to delicate flowers that need nurturing, though her story ends with a montage of fuzzy, black-and-white photographs showing military dominance in the region. The image representing Thailand is a photo of a tank on the streets of Bangkok when the 2006 coup took place.

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.