Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

During Donald Trump’s first term as US President, Maggie Haberman at The New York Times was the Trump reporter par excellence, breaking numerous exclusive stories based on unique access to senior White House sources. Since Trump’s return to the presidency last year, Haberman has been on book leave, working with fellow NYT reporter Jonathan Swan on a sequel to her earlier Trump biography Confidence Man. Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Haberman and Swan’s definitive account of the first year of Trump’s second term, will be published on 23rd June.

Incredibly, the research for Regime Change included interviews with more than 1,000 sources. The authors also interviewed Trump for an hour in the Oval Office. Two lengthy extracts from the book have already been published in The New York Times, both of which included detailed accounts, with extensive quotes, of meetings in the Situation Room. According to a 14th June report on the Axios website, Trump administration officials believe — based on the veracity of the extracts — that unauthorised recordings from inside the Situation Room were leaked to Haberman and Swan which, if true, would be an unprecedented breach of White House security.

Regime Change is the twenty-third Trump tome on the Dateline Bangkok bookshelf. The others are: Confidence Man, Lucky Loser, TrumpNation, War, The Divider, Betrayal, Fire and Fury, Too Much and Never Enough, Fear, Rage, Peril, I Alone Can Fix It, A Very Stable Genius, Inside Trump’s White House, The United States of Trump, Trump’s Enemies, The Trump White House, The Room Where It Happened, Team of Five, American Carnage, The Cost, and the audiobook The Trump Tapes.

Mob Type:An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography

The design studio PrachathipaType — a pun on prachathipatai, the Thai word for ‘democracy’ — specialises in pro-democracy typefaces. Working with some of the organisations leading the 2020–2021 anti-government protests, PrachathipaType effectively created the visual identity of the reform movement.

PrachathipaType’s type specimens and logos were published in 2022 as Mob Type. That Thai-language book was translated into Korean and English last year, in a dual-language edition titled Mob Type: An Archive of the People’s Fight through Typography (몹타입: 태국의 타이포그래피 민주화 투쟁 아카이브).

A detailed timeline of recent Thai politics — The Lost Decade — has been added to the new edition of Mob Type, to contextualise the protest movement for readers outside Thailand. PrachathipaType previously published a 2021 calendar in collaboration with Headache Stencil, and แบบเรียนพยัญชนะไทย (‘Thai consonant textbook’) in collaboration with Rap Against Dictatorship.

PrachathipaType and Rap Against Dictatorship have also collaborated on several other projects, including the music videos Homeland (บ้านเกิดเมืองนอน) and Budget (งบประมาณ). Most recently, PrachathipaType created an animated music video for the band’s single คุณหนูประเทศไท้ย กับกกต.ทั้งเจ็ด (‘little miss Thailand and the ECT members’), released after this year’s election.

The Wayward Travelers

A retrospective of short films by Weerapat Sakolvaree will be shown on 19th June in the library at Arai Arai cafe in Bangkok. The programme, The Wayward Travelers, features Nostalgia, The Eternal Labyrinth, and two films from Weerapat’s ongoing Oblivion (เลือน) series: The Original Texts (บทประพันธ์ดั้งเดิม) and A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation (ย้ายรัง). A previous Weerapat retrospective, the similarly-titled Trilogy of Wayward Travelers, was held in 2023.

Nostalgia

In Nostalgia, a young man discovers that, whenever he fires a shooting-star toy into the sky, he becomes receptive to sounds that regress progressively further into Bangkok’s violent past. Like Chris Marker’s La jetée (‘the jetty’), the ironically-titled Nostalgia is comprised of a series of still photographs, though it also includes archive newsreel footage of the 6th October 1976 massacre at Thammasat University.

Standing at the roadside in Din Daeng, the protagonist hears “fireworks and a lot of motorcycles.” These are sounds of the clashes between anti-government protesters and riot police that took place there throughout August 2021. (Police fired rubber bullets at protesters on 10th, 11th, 13th, and 15th August 2021.) At Siam Square, he hears the sound of riot police deploying water cannon against protesters on 16th October 2020. At Lumpini Park, the sound of the 19th May 2010 military crackdown fills his ears, followed by the ‘Black May’ 1992 massacre at Democracy Monument, and the 1976 Thammasat massacre.

These locations are, to use the Dutch artist Armando’s term, ‘guilty landscapes’: silent witnesses to past traumas. Like the origami bird in Panya Zhu’s White Bird (นกตัวนั้นยังสบายดีไหม), the toy in Nostalgia is a conduit for sonic echoes of historical violence, which form an audio collage in Weerapat’s film.

Nostalgia is also similar to Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap’s Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน), which likewise revisits Bangkok’s ‘guilty landscapes’. Nostalgia and Re-presentation both end with shots of the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, hinting at the established hierarchies underlying Thai politics. In Nostalgia, the Throne Hall is seen from behind iron railings, a reminder that the building is now closed to the public.

Nostalgia has previously been shown at Nitade Experimental Shorts, at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังแห่งเมืองเชียงใหม่) — twice — and at Future Fest 2023, Wildtype 2022, and The 26th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 26). Its most recent screening was at The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7) last year.

The Original Texts

The Original Texts, a collage of found footage woven into a magical realist allegory, begins with the sound of gunshots, stills from Chookiat Sakveerakul’s film Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), and a voiceover in which a student, Burindh, describes the 1976 massacre: “A gunshot has been fired. Sending its vibrating wave upon my chest.”

As the poetic voiceover continues, the narrator recalls how he fled not only from the Thammasat campus but from Bangkok itself, which “is not the city of the people. It is not the city of ordinary people”. (These lines are juxtaposed with vintage newsreel footage of the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall and the Grand Palace, symbolic buildings that also appear in Nostalgia and Zombie Citizens.)

As he escapes from his attackers, Burindh asks: “if I don’t possess this ideology that’s different than them, would they still aim their bullets at me?” The question is as relevant now as it was in 1976, as riot police fired rubber bullets at student protesters in 2021 and 2022. The film uses footage of a protest against Ampon Tangnoppakul’s conviction for lèse-majesté, taken from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s short film Ashes, to hint at the ideology of Burindh and the recent protesters.

In 1976, a prominent monk, Kittivuddho Bhikku, pronounced that killing communists was equivalent to merely catching fish, in a signal to the royalist vigilante groups who stormed the Thammasat campus a few months later. Images of fish in Thunska Pansittivorakul’s documentary The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย) were metaphors for the monk’s comments, though The Original Texts goes a stage further: Burindh transforms into a goby fish and swims away from Bangkok.

Burindh’s metamorphosis is similar to that of Boonsong, the monkey spirit in Apichatpong’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), another student who fled from persecution and transformed into an animal. Burindh meets Boonsong, his (literal) kindred spirit, who reassures him that his memories (and, by implication, Thailand’s political traumas) will not be forgotten as long as they are retold.

The Original Texts was directed under the pseudonym Burindh the Golden Goby. It was shown at Wildtype last year. The Original Texts and Nostalgia are both examples of films that refer to the Thammasat massacre, of which there are more than seventy titles. Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses Thai political filmmaking in much more detail.

The Lens of the Marginalized:Documenting Identity and Blurred Borders

The 1st Lung Film Festival (ลุงฟิล์มเฟสติวัลครั้งที่ 1), taking place in Phatthalung from 4th to 26th July, will include a retrospective of films by Nontawat Numbenchapol. The Lens of the Marginalized: Documenting Identity and Blurred Borders (บันทึกตัวตนและพรมแดนที่พร่าเลือน), at the Us coffee shop, will feature all of Nontawat’s feature-length documentaries, including his early works Boundary (ฟ้าต่ำแผ่นดินสูง), By the River (สายน้ำติดเชื้อ), and Soil Without Land (ดินไร้แดน).

The director will take part in a Q&A on 12th July, titled The Longest Way Home: Nontawat Numbenchapol’s Journey Back to Self (การเดินทางกลับไปหาตัวตนของ นนทวัฒน์ นำเบญจพล). A previous Nontawat retrospective, Underdocs, was held in Bangkok in 2019.

Boundary

Boundary documents the 2008 conflict between Thailand and Cambodia when the disputed Preah Vihear Temple was exploited for nationalist political gain. The issue was so sensitive that the director couldn’t even reveal his identity while filming at the temple. As he told me in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored: “I could not tell anyone in Cambodia that I’m Thai, because it would be hard to shoot. I had to tell everybody I’m Chinese-American... My name was Thomas in Cambodia.”

Boundary is composed largely of silent, still sequences depicting the serenity of rural life, as a counterpoint to the fierce border dispute surrounding the temple. Nontawat begins by interviewing Aod, a young soldier, in his home village. Idyllic sequences of novice monks bathing and Aod’s father fishing are contrasted with Aod describing his military conscription and the army’s crackdown against red-shirt protesters in 2010.

After footage of the Thai military firing at their Cambodian counterparts near Preah Vihear, we see damage to houses and a school close to the temple, caused by bombs and gunfire from Cambodian troops. Finally, at the end of the film, Nontawat’s camera explores the temple itself, the ruined Khmer compound that has been the subject of such bloodshed and ultra-nationalism.

It remains a topical film, as another border dispute between the two countries took place last year, and the issue was a significant factor in Bhumjaithai’s election victory in February. The Thai–Cambodia conflict also resulted in the dismissal of Paetongtarn Shinawatra as prime minister, following a leaked telephone call between Paetongtarn and former Cambodian PM Hun Sen, in which she appeared to side with Cambodia against her own military.

Boundary will be shown at LFF on 12th July. It was previously shown at Lido Connect and Warehouse 30 in Bangkok in 2019. It was screened four times last year: at Chiang Mai University, at Phimai, at the Thai Film Archive, and at Thammasat University. It has been subject to censorship twice: it was cut before its theatrical release in 2013, and a screening in Chonburi was prohibited by the military in 2015.

When Nontawat originally submitted the film to the censorship board, they announced that it had been banned, though two days later they performed a U-turn, explaining that the earlier announcement had been made by an unauthorised sub-committee. A token cut was required before the film was eventually approved by the censors: background audio of a crowd chanting “Long live the king!” at a New Year countdown was muted. Inexplicably, the film received a restrictive ‘18’ rating.

The censors had also argued that the film’s account of the 2010 military crackdown was misleading. A text caption in the film explains: “Almost 100 people were killed.” A comprehensive report by the People’s Information Center concluded that there were ninety-four casualties, which seems to validate the ‘almost 100’ claim, and ultimately the statistic was not cut from the film.

Initially unable to secure regular theatrical distribution, Nontawat was forced to negotiate with cinemas independently, selling tickets personally in the lobby of each venue. (Thai Cinema Uncensored covers the controversy surrounding the film’s release in more detail.)

By the River

By the River will be shown at LFF on 11th July. The film highlights the effects of lead pollution in the water of Lower Klity Creek in Kanchanaburi: when fishermen complained about poisoned fish, the local government simply told them to “find something else to eat.” As Nontawat explained in his Thai Cinema Uncensored interview: “This film is about toxins in the river. It captures the people who live around the river: their lives at that moment.”

The film’s subject is no less controversial than that of Boundary, as mining companies filed defamation lawsuits in 2016 and 2017 after similar investigations into water pollution. (The first case was dismissed, and the second was settled out of court.)

Soil Without Land

Soil Without Land’s LFF screening is on 12th July. Boundary explored the Thai-Cambodia border dispute through the experience of a newly conscripted soldier, and Soil Without Land takes a similar approach, documenting Jai Sang Lod’s conscription into the Shan State army. The Shan are persecuted in Myanmar, and are denied refugee status in neighboring Thailand.

The documentary is a precursor to Nontawat’s feature film Doi Boy (ดอยบอย), whose protagonist, Sorn, is also a young man from Shan State conscripted into the military. After deserting, Sorn crosses the border into Thailand, jumping from the frying pan into the fire. He is forced to totally transform his identity (from monk to soldier to sex worker) and, like other undocumented migrants in Thailand and elsewhere, he is exploited by almost everyone he meets.

The 1st Lung Film Festival

The 1st Lung Film Festival (ลุงฟิล์มเฟสติวัลครั้งที่ 1), organised by Phatthalung Micro Cinema, runs from 4th to 26th July, with screenings at the Us coffee shop in Phatthalung. The full schedule has not yet been announced — the LFF will feature a retrospective by Nontawat Numbenchapol — though the highlights so far include Vichart Somkaew’s short film Antipsychotics, his documentary When My Father Was a Communist (เมื่อพ่อผมเป็นคอมมิวนิสต์), and Wattanapume Laisuwanchai’s video installation The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts (ร่างกายอยากปะทะ เพราะรักมันปะทุ).

When My Father Was a Communist is screening on 5th July. Antipsychotics and The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts both feature in the Social Evolution (วิวัฒนาการสังคมไทย) programme on 18th July.

There will also be screenings of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 (which opens the festival on 4th July) and The Shining (on 25th July), presented by Doc Club and Pub. Both films were shown at Cloud 11 in March, and have been screened in Thailand several times before.

Previous screenings of The Shining in Thailand:

• 2025 rerelease
• Scala in 2020
• Siri House in 2019
• Cinema Winehouse in 2018
• Cinema Winehouse in 2015

Previous Thai screenings of 2001:

• Doc Club and Pub in 2024
• Arcadia in 2022
• Scala in 2017
• Thai Film Archive in 2013

Antipsychotics

At the start of Antipsychotics, Vichart reveals that he suffers from depression. In a voiceover, he describes his symptoms, which include hallucinations and feelings of paranoia. On screen, we see profiles of various antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs, and their possible side effects, accompanied by stock footage.

The director also recounts the traumatic experience that he feels led to his condition: the humiliating hazing rituals and violent punishments he endured during his conscription. “I drew a red card and was drafted into the military service”, he says, before describing the physical and mental harm he was subjected to.

There have been occasional news reports of cadets being injured — and worse — during military training sessions, though there is less coverage of the potential psychological toll that Vichart describes. At the end of his powerful and ultimately optimistic film, he argues that conscription should be replaced by voluntary service.

Antipsychotics will also be shown tomorrow at the Thailand International LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival 2026. It has previously been screened at the Chard Festival (ฉาด เฟสติวัล), at Open Screen, and in last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

When My Father Was a Communist

For When My Father Was a Communist, Vichart interviewed his father, Sawang, and other former members of the Communist Party of Thailand. The film is a valuable social history, as the veterans explain their decisions to join the CPT, and describe their experiences in the forests of Phatthalung.

When My Father Was a Communist is also a record of the state’s violent suppression of communist insurgents, hundreds (potentially thousands) of whom were burned in oil drums in 1972. These so-called ‘red barrel’ deaths were most prevalent in Phatthalung, and have never been officially investigated. (The names of the victims are listed before the film’s end credits.) There have been other documentaries about the red barrels, but When My Father Was a Communist stands out for Vichart’s close connections to the subject: this is a deeply personal project, as he was born in Phatthalung, and he is documenting the memories of his elderly father.

The film has been screened around the country, including in Trang earlier this year, at last year’s Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่), and at Hope Space in Bangkok.

The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts

The Body Craves Impact as Love Bursts features images of a man and woman tantalisingly close and facing each other, yet separated. As the director explained in his artist’s statement, the installation was made in solidarity with the rapper Elevenfinger, who served a prison sentence for possession of ping-pong bombs used in anti-government protests: “I have visited him and witnessed the despair not only affecting him and his partner but also their families and relatives. This situation mirrors the plight of other political prisoners”.

The video ends dramatically with flashing images and footage of fireworks, filmed at Thalugaz protests in 2021. It was first shown as an installation at the Procession of Dystopia exhibition. It has also been screened at The 7th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่ 7), Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Cinemine/d, and Phimailongweek (พิมายฬองวีค).

Linocuts:A History

Last year, Thames and Hudson, in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, published Screenprints by Gill Saunders, the first in an annual series of books covering the histories of individual printmaking techniques. Saunders has also contributed to the second title in the series, Linocuts: A History, though its lead author is Ella Ravilious.

Both books are elegantly designed and typeset, and beautifully illustrated. (Most of their illustrations are from the V&A’s extensive prints collection, supplemented by works from private collections and other institutions.)

In her introduction, Ravilious explains that “although there are hundreds of ‘how-to’ books on making linocuts, little has been published on the history of this striking medium.” Linocuts is therefore the first comprehensive history of its subject, and similarly Screenprints is the only complete history of the screenprint.

On the other hand, the next two books in the series, on etchings, and woodcuts (forthcoming over the next two years), will not be the first histories of those printmaking techniques. There have already been several books on woodcuts — most recently, Anne Desmet’s Scene Through Wood — and Arthur M. Hind’s A History of Engraving and Etching is the standard history of etchings.

Nirat New York

Nirat New York, a retrospective of early work by Kamin Lertchaiprasert, opened at JWD Art Space in Bangkok today and runs until 26th July. Kamin was living in New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the works in the exhibition date from that period.

One of the centrepieces is Muangnging 1991–1992 (ม่วงจิ้ง 1991–1992), a series of 366 oil and acrylic paintings representing a year and a day in the artist’s life. The painting for 19th May 1992 shows the events of ‘Black May’, and subsequent paintings show Kamin leaving America to return to Thailand and witness the events at Democracy Monument for himself four days later.

Donald Trump v. The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump has refiled his defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal. He originally sued the newspaper last July after it reported that he had sent child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a salacious letter on Epstein’s fiftieth birthday.

The case was initially dismissed last month, and Southern District of Florida judge Darrin P. Gayles made it very clear that Trump had failed to establish that the Journal had acted with ‘actual malice’, the legal standard required for defamation cases filed by public figures in the US. Gayles wrote: “The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite.”

In a front-page story published (in late editions) on 18th July 2025, the newspaper quoted Trump’s birthday greeting to Epstein: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

The text was enclosed within a drawing of the outline of a nude woman, and Trump signed the letter in the position where the woman’s pubic hair would be. A thick marker pen, Trump’s preferred type, was used for the drawing and signature. The letter was part of an album compiled in 2003 by Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell — who is also a child sex offender — containing letters and cards from Epstein’s friends, including Trump.

Trump was a close associate of Epstein’s who attempted to distance himself once Epstein’s crimes were revealed. The WSJ article — written by Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo, and headlined “Trump’s Bawdy Letter to Epstein Was in 50th Birthday Album” — included denials by Trump, and quoted him as saying: “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else”.

Safdar and Palazzolo were named in Trump’s lawsuit, as was media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the proprietor of the WSJ. Trump posted on Truth Social on 18th July 2025: “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But now he has, and I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.” His lawsuit sought $10 billion in damages for defamation per se, and a further $10 billion for defamation per quod (that is, implicit defamation).

A copy of the letter was released by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on 8th September 2025, and the newspaper cited this as clear evidence that its story was true. When he dismissed the case last month, the judge noted that the letter described by the Journal and the copy released by the committee “appear identical”, though he did not make a judgement about the accuracy of the newspaper’s reporting. In his lawsuit filed today, Trump’s lawyers argue that “no authentic letter or drawing exists.”

Murdoch has a chequered history with Trump, as does the Journal. In an editorial at the beginning of last year, the newspaper called Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada “The Dumbest Trade War in History”. Murdoch was quoted calling Trump a “fucking idiot” in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury.

Trump’s lawsuit against the WSJ was the first time that a sitting American president had ever sued a media organisation. He has subsequently filed a lawsuit against The New York Times and the authors of Lucky Loser, and he sued the BBC after Panorama edited one of his speeches.

Trump has sued numerous other media figures and news organisations over the years as a private citizen, including Bill Maher and CNN. He sued Bob Woodward for copyright infringement, though that case was dismissed. His lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll was also dismissed. His unsuccessful lawsuit against Timothy L. O’Brien’s book TrumpNation sought $5 billion in damages.

Trump has never won a libel case in court, though he has received settlements in two cases. ABC settled after he sued them in 2024. He sued CBS later that year, and they also agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

Occasionally, Trump has filed defamation suits indirectly via his organisations or relatives. His brother sued their niece, Mary Trump, in 2020, though the case was dismissed. A suit filed against the NYT by his presidential campaign also failed. His wife won undisclosed damages from The Daily Telegraph in 2019, and she was awarded $3 million in damages from the Daily Mail in 2017.

Researching Film Censorship in Thailand

I gave an online presentation — Researching Film Censorship in Thailand — for the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts at the University of Antwerp in Belgium today. The event, Research and Creation amid Asian Socio-political Sensitivity: Methods and Reflections, was a seminar on film censorship in Asia, and I discussed the background to my book Thai Cinema Uncensored.

ARIA describes my session as follows: “Matthew Hunt will discuss the research process for his book “Thai Cinema Uncensored”, and the outcomes of that process. Challenges included a lack of cooperation from the Thai Ministry of Culture, and the initial reluctance of some directors to talk about their experiences of censorship. The interviews revealed a collective sense of political awakening among the directors, and a consistent set of grievances about the contemporary censorship system. However, the directors differed in their responses to censorship, depending on their commercial and ideological considerations, with some drawing attention and challenging the censors, while others worked under the radar. Previous accounts of Thai film censorship had cited the first film to be censored in the country (in 1923) and then jumped forward to 2007, ignoring the 80-year period in between. Filling in that gap involved an analysis of censorship policy over the last century, revealing its close connection to the country’s modern political history.”

This is my how I’m described on the seminar’s website: “Matthew Hunt is the author of “Thai Cinema Uncensored”, the first history of film censorship in Thailand and the first comprehensive survey of Thai political filmmaking. In addition to his academic work, Hunt has been actively involved in journalism and cultural commentary. He was editor of the current affairs magazine Encounter Thailand, and has written magazine articles on the Thai film industry. He was also a lecturer at the Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand), teaching courses on journalism and society. He has a master’s degree in visual culture from Coventry University (UK).”

This is the third online lecture I have given. The others, which were also about aspects of Thai cinema, were for the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2021 and the Peace Research Institute Oslo in 2022.

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit

Charges filed against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit under the lèse-majesté and Computer Crime laws were dropped today by the Criminal Court in Bangkok. The case related to a Facebook Live video stream on 18th January 2021, in which Thanathorn criticised the contract between AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscience (a Crown Property Bureau company) to produce coronavirus vaccines in Thailand.

The court has ruled that Thanathorn’s comments were directed only towards the government, and didn’t constitute defamation. Thanathorn was disqualified as an MP in 2019, and his Future Forward party was dissolved in 2020.

Thailand International LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival 2026

The Thailand International LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival 2026 will be held at Paragon Cineplex in Bangkok from 5th–11th June. (TILFF was also held at Paragon in 2024, though last year the festival took place at Icon Siam.)

Vichart Somkaew’s Antipsychotics will be shown on 7th June as part of the Thai Spectrum programme. It has previously been screened at the Chard Festival (ฉาด เฟสติวัล), at Open Screen, and in last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Another strand of the Thai Spectrum programme, also screening on 7th June, has a self-imposed ‘18’ age rating, as it includes the explicit new short films Peach (พีช) and Auey Kaab. Peach, an experimental film directed under the pseudonym Shadowplay, begins with a series of photos of male and female body parts shown as double-exposures. (The first image is of two erections.) Auey Kaab, directed by Patthakarn Sadubtham and shot on Super 8mm film, features young Isan men having sex while wearing Songkran costumes. A humorous voiceover refers to the stereotype of Isan men who elicit money from people who fall for them by pretending that their buffalo is sick.

Antipsychotics

At the start of Antipsychotics, Vichart reveals that he suffers from depression. In a voiceover, he describes his symptoms, which include hallucinations and feelings of paranoia. On screen, we see profiles of various antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs, and their possible side effects, accompanied by stock footage.

The director also recounts the traumatic experience that he feels led to his condition: the humiliating hazing rituals and violent punishments he endured during his conscription. “I drew a red card and was drafted into the military service”, he says, before describing the physical and mental harm he was subjected to.

There have been occasional news reports of cadets being injured — and worse — during military training sessions, though there is less coverage of the potential psychological toll that Vichart describes. At the end of his powerful and ultimately optimistic film, he argues that conscription should be replaced by voluntary service.

เทศกาล หนังไทย...ต้องดู: Thai Film Showcase #1

Wednesday Shine, a microcinema in Chiang Mai, will show a season of classic Thai films from tomorrow until 4th June. The เทศกาล หนังไทย...ต้องดู: Thai Film Showcase #1 (‘Thai film festival...must see’) programme includes two films by Anocha Suwichakornpong: By the Time It Gets Dark (ดาวคะนอง) on 28th May and Mundane History (เจ้านกกระจอก) on 4th June.

The Edge of Daybreak

Taiki Sakpisit’s The Edge of Daybreak will be shown on 31st May as part of the Hua Hin Indie Screen film programme at the Hua Hin Convention Center. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Taiki, and Hua Hin Indie Screen runs from 29th to 31st May.

Like Sivaroj Kongsakul’s Regretfully at Dawn (อรุณกาล), Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s Anatomy of Time (เวลา), and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), The Edge of Daybreak’s protagonist is a retired soldier nearing the end of his life, who cannot escape the memories and consequences of his role in the suppression of communist insurgents. It begins with a flashback to that era, narrated by the old man: “I was leading my unit into the woods to catch the students.”

In Taiki’s film, the former soldier’s family believe that they are cursed and, as if to confirm this, the exquisite black-and-white camerawork lingers on images of decay, such as rotting food and their crumbling home. The Edge of Daybreak was previously shown at the Chiang Mai Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังแห่งเมืองเชียงใหม่) in 2023, and at the Thai Film Archive in 2024.

The Story of Printmaking:A Global History of Art

It has been thirty years since the last general history of artists’ prints — The Print in the Western World, by Linda C. Hults — was published. The Story of Printmaking, a new book on the subject by Holly E.J. Black, explains the major printmaking techniques and celebrates the artists who mastered them.

Black writes about the development of etching, mezzotint, aquatint, woodblock printing, lithography, and screenprints. She credits Jules Chéret as “the forefather of lithography,” Andy Warhol as the “one name that is truly synonymous with screenprinting”, and Francisco de Goya as the “artist who harnessed the possibilities of the [aquatint] medium like no other”. She argues that Sumida Hokusai’s The Great Wave (神奈川沖浪裏) is one of “a handful of artworks in existence that have become so utterly imprinted on the public consciousness that they deserved to be called ‘iconic’.”

The Story of Printmaking also highlights “the lesser-known players who have been deliberately or erroneously overlooked.” Many of these are female artists and printmakers, some of whom are relatives of more famous male figures. The book covers an extensive timeline and geographical range, though it’s quite episodic — with entire chapters on Mexico and South Africa, for example — rather than being a comprehensive history.

The Print in the Western World was almost 1,000 pages long, and an earlier history, The Art of the Print by Fritz Eichenberg, was similarly monumental at 600 pages. In contrast, at around 250 pages The Story of Printmaking feels less substantial than its subtitle (A Global History of Art) implies.

The first complete history of printmaking, Six Centuries of Fine Prints by Carl Zigrosser, was published in 1937. This was followed in the 1950s by Prints and Visual Communication (by William M. Ivens) and 500 Years of Printing (by S.H. Steinberg).

There are also authoritative books on specific printmaking techniques:

Woodcuts

• A History of Wood Engraving (Douglas Percy Bliss)
  
• A History of Wood Engraving (Albert Garrett)
• Scene Through Wood (Anne Desmet)

Screenprinting

• Screenprints (Gill Saunders)

Mezzotint

• The Mezzotint (Carol Wax)

Aquatint

• Aquatint (Rena M. Hoisington)

Engraving and etching

• A History of Engraving and Etching (Arthur M. Hind)

Linocut

• Linocuts (Ella Ravilious)

Lithography

• A History of Lithography (Wilhelm Weber)
• Lithography (Domenico Porzio)

Monotype

• The Painterly Print (Margaret Aspinwall)
• The Monotype (Carla Esposito Hayter)

Woodblock

• Images from the Floating World (Richard Lane)

Lady C: The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover

When the obscenity trial of D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover made headlines in the UK in 1960, the press dubbed it the ‘Lady C’ scandal. As Guy Cuthbertson says in his new book about the novel, also titled Lady C, the nickname “suggests the controversy regarding Lawrence’s use of ‘the c-word’”, and Cuthbertson’s first chapter is therefore titled The C-Word.

Cuthbertson’s book, subtitled The Long, Sensational Life of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, discusses the novel’s publication history, and gives an exhaustive account of its cultural impact. His source materials include newspaper coverage of the Lady C controversy from the 1950s onwards. He also describes the obscenity trial, or rather the trials, as Lady Chatterley was tried for obscenity in Japan and the US before the more famous Old Bailey trial.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Lady C’s acquittal, I wrote about the British court case, commenting that “the most notorious moment of the trial came at the beginning,” when prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked the jury: “Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?” I also listed the “many outdated assumptions” inherent in that question, and pointed out the hypocrisy of Griffith-Jones telling the jury to avoid adopting a Victorian attitude when “his moral objections to the novel were themselves somewhat Victorian”.

Similarly, Cuthbertson writes: “The most remarkable and memorable moment of the trial came near the start,” and itemises the “various implied statements” in the Griffith-Jones question to the jury. He also highlights the prosecutor’s hypocrisy: “He had asked the jury that they should not act ‘in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct mid-Victorian manner’, but that was a manner that he himself seemed to have adopted.”

The Old Bailey trial was covered in more detail by C.H. Rolph in The Trial of Lady Chatterley, published only three months after the verdict was announced. In 1990, to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the case, the court stenographers’ transcript was published verbatim as The Lady Chatterley’s Lover Trial (edited by H. Montgomery Hyde).

We Are Arnon

The Nomad Sugar Daddy Gallery in Bangkok has created a series of artworks to commemorate the anniversary of the 2010 Ratchaprasong crackdown. Images and text, in both Thai and English, refer to the deaths of pro-democracy protesters (“Rich and Poor we all bleed Red”) and those who died at Wat Pathum Wanaram (“The Six People Killed at the Temple”).

Nomad has also produced We Are Arnon, a set of stickers in solidarity with Arnon Nampa. Later this year, the gallery will also release a series of t-shirts illustrating the moment on 30th September 2006 when Nuamthong Praiwan crashed his taxi into a tank to protest against the coup that had taken place that month.

Blue Collar: แรงงาน วิญญาณ ความฝัน

Blue Collar: แรงงาน วิญญาณ ความฝัน (‘labour, soul, dreams’), a new season of films about working-class characters, runs from 1st to 29th May at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. The programme included a screening of the classic On the Waterfront — featuring Marlon Brando’s iconic “I coulda been a contender” monologue — on 3rd May. Tomorrow, there will be a screening of Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s A Useful Ghost (ผีใช้ได้ค่ะ), and Ratchapoom will take part in a Q&A after the screening.

The story of Mae Nak — the Thai legend in which a young woman dies and returns as a ghost to reunite with her husband — has been retold dozens of times, including in the blockbuster Pee Mak (พี่มาก .. พระโขนง) starring Davika Hoorne. (I wrote about the various Mae Nak adaptations for Encounter Thailand magazine.) Davika also stars in A Useful Ghost, though there’s a bizarre twist to the tale: she plays Nat, a ghost that returns to her husband March not as a traditional spectre, but as a haunted vacuum cleaner. (The names Nat and March evoke those of Mae Nak and her husband Mak.)

In A Useful Ghost, the restless spirits of the dead possess domestic appliances, either to be near their loved ones or, in most cases, to torment the people responsible for their deaths. Inhaling toxic dust particles seems to be a common cause of death, hence the possessed vacuums, and this is a reflection of real life: Bangkok and Chiang Mai are notorious for their air pollution.

Ratchapoom’s film begins as an absurd comedy, as the haunted Hoover trundles around. (A Useful Ghost shares its sense of deadpan humour with the short films of Sorayos Prapapan.) In a hilarious early sequence, a monk insults Nat’s ghost, prompting a debate among his fellow monks: “Sir, we’re holy men. We shouldn’t use words like ‘cunt’ too liberally.”

In its second half, A Useful Ghost becomes much darker. We discover that some appliances are haunted by victims of political violence: Dr Paul, a government minister, complains that he can’t sleep due to the sounds of gunshots replayed by the ghosts of those who died at Ratchaprasong in 2010. It’s this noise, not his conscience, keeping him awake at night.

Dr Paul leads a decadent lifestyle, and seems to have authority everywhere he goes, yet his ministerial portfolio is unspecified. This ambiguity, and his generic name, are presumably intended to avoid any association with real-life politicians. His wife complains about protesters who revive memories of the 1976 Thammasat massacre and the 1932 revolution, and a subplot about the dismantling of a frieze also refers to the removal of monuments commemorating 1932.

The film shifts in tone from comedy to political satire, as Nat taps into people’s dreams and the state uses electroconvulsive therapy to erase the memories of the ghosts’ living relatives. (If people can’t remember the deceased in their dreams, then the ghosts disappear.) The ECT not only eliminates the ghosts, it also ensures that any memories of state atrocities are erased, and March resists this brainwashing by reading a (fictional) book about Ratchaprasong. As he tells Nat, she is helping to delete history, so he is trying to preserve it.

The forgetting of political violence is also a key theme in the sci-fi film Taklee Genesis (ตาคลี เจเนซิส), the short film Transmissions of Unwanted Pasts (วงโคจรของความทรงจำ), the video installation Delete Our History, Now! (อำนาจ/การลบทิ้ง), the exhibitions Amnesia and Unforgetting History, the novel The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth (ไส้เดือนตาบอดในเขาวงกต), and Wichaya Artamat’s new play The Dead Still Riot. In fact, that play’s title also describes the ending of A Useful Ghost.

There are three short films featuring the ghosts of Ratchaprasong massacre victims: We Will Forget It Again (แล้วเราจะลืมมันอีกครั้ง) — which also deals with the theme of forgetting the past — This House Have Ghost [sic], and Hush, Tonight the Dead Are Dreaming Loudly. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the history of Thai political filmmaking.)

As in Ten Years Thailand and Supernatural (เหนือธรรมชาติ), A Useful Ghost uses dystopian science-fiction to comment on present-day Thailand. Like the film’s scientists wiping memories, successive military governments have sought to suppress discussion of controversial events. The result of this whitewashing is a cycle of nascent democratic reforms repeatedly reset by military coups, as forgotten history is destined to repeat itself.

A Useful Ghost’s initial focus on dust and vacuum cleaners is given an additional resonance in its second half. In Thailand, the idiom ‘dust under the feet’ refers to people swept under the carpet like insignificant specks of dust. The film’s cathartic ending hints at this metaphorical meaning of ‘dust’, as the ghosts wreak their revenge on Dr Paul while dust particles are shown glittering in the air.

Beam Wong: Selected Moving Images 2015–2026

This evening, the Goethe-Institut in Bangkok will show a partial retrospective of short films by Beam Wong. Selected Moving Images 2015–2026 includes his music video Long Live the Sin from 2021, which features imagery associated with the three-finger protest movement. Today’s retrospective is the first event in the Goethe-Institut’s Stack V_Circuits screening programme.

Insects in the Backyard

Identity Unbound: ท้าว/ข้าม (‘walk/cross’), a two-day season of films marking Pride Month, will take place at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 20th and 21st June. The event will begin with a screening of Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s Insects in the Backyard (อินเซค อินเดอะ แบ็คยาร์ด).

Insects in the Backyard premiered at the World Film Festival of Bangkok in 2010, though requests for a general theatrical release were denied, making it the first film formally banned under the Film and Video Act of 2008. When the censors vetoed a screening at the Film Archive in 2010, Tanwarin cremated a DVD of the film, in a symbolic funeral. (The ashes are kept in an urn at the Thai Film Museum.) Tanwarin appealed to the National Film Board, which upheld the ban, so she sued the censors in the Administrative Court.

As Tanwarin explained in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored, the censors condemned the entire film: “When we asked the committee who considered the film which scenes constituted immorality, they simply said that they thought every scene is immoral”. When she appealed to the Film Board, they were equally dismissive: “we were told by one of the committee members that we should have made the film in a ‘good’ way. This was said as if we did not know how to produce a good movie, and no clear explanation was given.”

On Christmas Day 2015, the Administrative Court ruled that Insects in the Backyard could be released if a single shot was removed. (The three-second shot shows a hardcore clip from a gay porn video.) Although the film was censored, the verdict represented a victory of sorts, as the court overturned the censors’ ruling that the film was immoral. As Tanwarin said in her Thai Cinema Uncensored interview: “we considered that we had won the case, because the cut doesn’t have an impact on the rest of the film”.

Following the court’s decision, the film was shown at House Rama, Bangkok Screening Room, Sunandha Rajabhat University, ChangChui, and Lido Connect. It was shown at the Film Archive in 2018, 2020, and 2023.

Insects in the Backyard was finally released after five years of legal challenges, though fortunately Thailand’s film censorship has since been liberalised. In 2024, two government committees tasked with increasing the country’s soft power proposed that the Film and Video Act of 2008 should be replaced with a system of self-regulation by the film industry, and since that announcement there have been no further film censorship controversies.

At a discussion in Phimai last year, Tanwarin described how the film industry had fought for the introduction of the 2008 film law (“ซึ่งเราก็ต่อสู้กันมาอย่างยาวนานนะกว่าจะได้ พ.ร.บ. ภาพยนตร์ปี”), and said that the decision to ban her film had made her cry (“ซึ่งตอนนั้นรีแอคก็คือก็เสียใจก็ร้องไห้นะฮะ”). She described the Administrative Court’s verdict as both a defeat and a victory (“เราแพ้แต่เราชนะ”).

Interestingly, she explained that she had specifically conceived Insects in the Backyard to be the first film to be rated ‘20’, the highest classification in the rating system. Her intention had been to take advantage of the adult rating by making an explicit film, though she hadn’t expected it to be banned outright (“พอเราเป็นคนทําเนี่ยเราก็วางแผนชัดเจนนะว่าหนังเราจะต้องได้เป็นหนังไทยเรื่องแรกที่ได้เรตติ้ง ‘20’... แต่เราก็ไม่นึกว่ามันจะเลยเถิดจนถึง: อืม ห้ามฉายโดนแบนนะครับ”).

Tanwarin also recalled how, when the ban was announced, she was criticised online for making what many considered a ‘sissy’ film. The bitter irony, she said, was that people were opposed to the film because they didn’t understand transsexuality, which the film would have given them a better understanding of (“เป็นเพราะความไม่เข้าใจ ซึ่งมันก็ตรงกับสิ่งที่เราต้องการนําเสนออยู่ในหนัง”).

Insects in the Backyard, a restaurant named after the film, closed in 2021. Its name was appropriate, as it featured water beetles, crickets, ants, and other insects on the menu.

Sapa Talk

Spitting Image, the British puppet comedy show, is a cornerstone of modern television satire. In fact, it’s even been said that many UK cabinet ministers became household names purely as a result of their Spitting Image puppets. Thai television also broadcast a political puppet show, Robot Government (รายการรัฐบาลหุ่น), in the early 2000s, created by veteran actor and director Arun Bhavilai. (Unfortunately, Robot Government is not well documented, either online or in print.)

Another show, Spa Joke [sic] (สภาโจ๊ก), was equally satirical, though it featured political lookalikes rather than puppets. The characters’ names were also soundalikes for those of real politicians. Like Robot Government, Spa Joke was broadcast on the independent channel iTV, running from 2002 to 2014. (After iTV closed down in 2007, Spa Joke moved to the state broadcaster NBT.)

Like Spitting Image, Spa Joke made political debates accessible to a mass audience, and this was one of the aims of the show’s creators. It was released on a long-running and popular series of VCDs, and the first year’s episodes are archived on YouTube, with the tagline “แล้วพบกันอีพีต่อๆไปครับท่านประธาน!” (‘see you in the next episode, Mr Speaker!’). It was briefly revived in audio form on the Clubhouse app in 2021, with live episodes that were even edgier than the TV version.

สภาโจ๊ก is also the title of a song by the band TaitosmitH, from their album เพื่อชีวิตกู (‘for my life’), which makes coded references to politicians of the period. The song refers to a man charged with possession of flour (Thammanat Prompao, who falsely claimed that the heroin he had smuggled was only flour), and a sleeping deputy PM (Prawit Wongsuwon, who was filmed dozing in parliament). The album was released on CD and vinyl in 2022.

In 2023, some of the original Spa Joke team created a new version of the show, Sapa Talk (สภาทอล์ค). This was initially broadcast on Thai-Tai, the channel that was previously known as Bluesky, though after a few months it moved to Thai Rath TV. Each episode is also on YouTube.

Sapa Talk’s cast included Phayao Nimma playing Prayut Chan-o-cha, and the actor also portrayed Prayut in the films New Abnormal (ผิดปกติใหม่) and The Cave (นางนอน). Sapa Talk has not released any new episodes since October last year, due to the national mourning period following the death of Queen Sirikit.