นิรโทษกรรม จำเลยคดี 6 ตุลา(‘amnesty for the 6th Oct. defendants’)

The documentary นิรโทษกรรม จำเลยคดี 6 ตุลา (‘amnesty for the 6th Oct. defendants’) will be shown at Thammasat University’s Faculty of Law on 5th July, as part of an event titled ครึ่งศตวรรษรัฐประหาร 6 ตุลาฯ ถึงเวลาลบมรดกบาป (‘half a century after the 6th Oct. coup, it’s time to erase the legacy of sin’). The film was previously screened at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on 25th February 2017.

นิรโทษกรรม จำเลยคดี 6 ตุลา was compiled from news footage of the announcement in 1978 of an amnesty for the Thammasat students who were arrested following the 6th October 1976 coup. The amnesty was proposed by Kriangsak Chamanan, the de facto leader of another coup in 1977. In the film, Kriangsak is seen at a press conference with the students, which was held at his home, in a performative display of national unity and reconciliation.

Of course, the students were the surviving victims of the event, not the instigators of it, and the perpetrators — various right-wing paramilitary groups — never faced any charges. However, the documentary begins with a summary by Channel 7 that accuses the students of provoking the massacre, citing their reenactment of the hanging of two men arrested for campaigning against the return of former dictator Thanom Kittikachorn. The film shows the notorious photograph of that reenactment printed in the Dao Siam (ดาวสยาม) newspaper, and the student actor in the photo, Apinan Buahapakdee, was one of those who were charged before the amnesty was granted.

Thongchai Winichakul was also one of those charged and pardoned. In Moments of Silence, he wrote about his memories of attending the press conference at Kriangsak’s house, noting that the amnesty was presented not as the reversal of an injustice but as a pardoning of the students’ perceived offences: “throughout the entire encounter, Kriangsak treated us as the wrongdoers, such as by telling us not to repeat past mistakes. This definitely reflected his view, and possibly that of all of those in power as well.”

The documentary was one of six films about Kriangsak’s political career issued on VCD in 2006, collectively titled ที่ระลึกงานพระราชทานเพลิงศพ พลเอกเกรียงศักดิ์ ชมะนันท์ อดีตนายกรัฐมนตรี 12 พ.ย. 2549 (‘souvenir from the royal cremation ceremony of general Kriangsak Chamanan, former prime minister, 12th November 2006’). They were part of a commemorative box set given to those who attended his funeral.

Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration

We live in an image-saturated culture, and Reading Pictures: A History of Illustration, by D.B. Dowd, shows how illustrations have been mass-produced and disseminated for more than 500 years. In his introduction, Dowd explains the book’s scope: “Reading Pictures is my attempt to tell a story of how printed images and texts developed, engaged, and sometimes manipulated audiences in North America, Europe, and East Asia from the early modern period to the present day, with greatest emphasis on the era of mass culture during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”

The first half of the book covers the development of various printing techniques — woodblock printing in Asia, the invention of moveable type, and European etching and engraving — and the relationship between illustration and mass media: illustrated novels, satirical prints, lithographic advertising posters, newspapers, magazines, and comics. Later chapters are more thematic, focusing on the role of illustration in political propaganda, and the media’s formation of visual stereotypes about gender identities, childhood, and race.

The main emphasis is on Europe and America, though each chapter also includes coverage of illustration in China and Japan. Given the book’s stated focus on printed illustrations, there is no discussion of illuminated manuscripts. Illustration throughout the nineteenth century, and in the first half of the twentieth century, is covered in depth. (Fifty Years of Illustration, by Lawrence Zeegen and Caroline Roberts, is a more detailed guide to illustration since the 1960s.)

Reading Pictures is the third book to survey the history of illustration. Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast wrote a visual history of the subject in 2008, a concise introduction rather than an in-depth study. On the other hand, History of Illustration, published in 2018 and edited by Susan Doyle, remains the definitive work.

Doyle’s book is more global in its coverage than Dowd’s, with chapters on Indian, Latin American, African, and Islamic illustration. It also has more than twice as many images: 900, compared to Dowd’s still-impressive 400. Doyle’s more comprehensive book also finds space for histories of the major illustration genres — anatomy, natural history, and fashion — which are absent from Reading Pictures.

Wildtype Middleclass 2026

Wildtype Middleclass 2026 will show a programme of independent and experimental films in July and August, at various microcinemas and other arts spaces around the country. Screenings will take place at Buffalo Bridge Gallery in Bangkok, Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai, Alien Artspace in Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai University’s Department of Media Arts and Design, Bliss Project in Chanthaburi, PYE Space in Phayao, and Doonungnaihognan in Korat.

One of the highlights will be Sina Wittayawiroj’s Your Ash and My Bone (ธุลีดาว), which was previously shown at Sina’s exhibition Can’t We Recant? (เราจะถอนคำพูดไม่ได้เลยหรือ?) earlier this year in Khon Kaen and last year in Bangkok. Your Ash and My Bone is a documentary collage film in which the artist narrates his life story from birth to the present, from his family background to the progress of his artistic career. It will be screened at Buffalo Bridge and Alien Artspace on 12th July.

Your Ash and My Bone

The film’s autobiographical narration is juxtaposed with an account of Thailand’s political turmoil over the same period. There is archive footage of ‘Black May’, the 2006 coup (which Sina describes as “this poisonous tree attempting to root itself deepest into society”), the red-shirt crackdown, the whistle-blower protests, the 2014 coup, and the student protest movement of 2020–2021.

Coloured filters are used to add political commentary to some of the events: blue for 2006, red for 2010, and yellow for 2014. Music is also a key element: a montage of scenes showing the arrest of Arnon Nampa and water cannon being used in Siam Square is accompanied by Caravan’s song Jit Phumisak (จิตร ภูมิศักดิ์), linking today’s student protesters to the revolutionary young writer who was killed in 1966.

Your Ash and My Bone also highlights some of Thailand’s artistic controversies over the past two decades: the banning of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century (แสงศตวรรษ), protests against Anupong Chantorn’s painting Perceptless (ภิกษุสันดานกา), and the censorship of the Rupture (หมายเหตุ ๕/๒๕๕๓) exhibition. The film shows how political repression and artistic censorship are equally corrosive.

Some self-censorship was necessary, and Sina draws attention to this by periodically displaying a spoof computer error screen (“No Freedom”) and obscuring certain words in the English subtitles. Abhichon Rattanabhayon used a similar tactic in his short film The Six Principles (สัญญาของผู้มาก่อนกาล), as did Pen-ek Ratanaruang in Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย).

Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters

Nonzee Nimibutr’s Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters [sic] (2499 อันธพาลครองเมือง), one of the most influential Thai films ever made, will be screened at Bangkok’s oldest cinema, Sala Chaloem Thani, on 1st August. The screening is organised by the Thai Film Archive, which reopened the historic wooden cinema last year.

Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters, the film that launched the Thai New Wave in 1997, was shown last year at the Microwave Film Festival in Sisaket. It had two outdoor screenings in 2022: in Chiang Mai (in 35mm) and Bangkok. It was shown at Scala in 2018, and at Ramada Plaza in 2010. It was shown twice at the Archive in 2020.

1997 was a pivotal year for Thai cinema, as Dang Bireley’s and Young Gangsters broke domestic box-office records and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s debut Fun Bar Karaoke (ฝันบ้าคาราโอเกะ) premiered at the Berlinale. The Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (เทศกาลหนังทดลองกรุงเทพฯ ครั้งที่) and Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น) were also founded in that year.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

This month marks the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth, and to celebrate the anniversary, the Thai Film Archive in Salaya will show one of her most famous films, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, on 28th August. (The film was screened twice in Bangkok in 2017, at Scala and Bangkok Screening Room.)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is one of the essential Monroe films (alongside Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch), purely because of her iconic performance of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. (The sequence was the inspiration for Madonna’s Material Girl music video.)

Against the Grain

Adult Material, a new contemporary art and design gallery in Bangkok, opened for its inaugural exhibition on 18th June. Against the Grain runs until 15th August, and includes the light sculpture Cunty Country by Oat Montien.

Cunty Country, which was completed only a few days before the exhibition opened, is a continuation of the theme of Oat’s 2024 solo exhibition Country Home Sheriff: the blending of Oat’s sexual identity with the cowboy accoutrements he inherited from his father. Oat’s father was the landlord of the western-themed Country Home pub, and Cunty Country incorporates part of the pub’s illuminated sign (‘คันทรี’, meaning ‘country’).

Dialogue with a Flower-Crowned Man of Thorns

Teerawat Mulvilai has often used props with political subtexts in his powerful and provocative dance performances. His latest work, Dialogue with a Flower-Crowned Man of Thorns, was performed on 20th and 21st June at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Teerawat interacts with red oil drums on stage — as he did in a previous performance, Red Tank (ถังแดง) — in an unspoken reference to the anti-communist purge in the 1970s. Dialogue with a Flower-Crowned Man of Thorns also refers to more recent political unrest, the 2020–2021 student protests, with plastic barricades that make loud thuds as they are pushed over.

Thai Hood

Thai rap artist 3Bone released his new single Thai Hood on 16th June. A state-of-the-nation song similar to Bigboat’s This Is Thailand (ที่นี่ประเทศไทย), Thai Hood’s lyrics call out illegal gambling, inequality, and corruption.

The music video features dozens of news clips, including the 2006 and 2014 coup announcements, ‘Black May’, Thaksin Shinawatra, the 2010 crackdown on protesters, the 2011 floods, water cannon being deployed against protesters in 2020, people who died on the street during the coronavirus pandemic, bodies found in the Mekong river, and the collapse of the State Audit Office building in 2025. It also includes the famous Neal Ulevich photograph taken on 6th October 1976. All of this is ironically intercut with promotional footage of traditional Thai dancers.

3Bone has previously rapped about contemporary politics in his single Sunflower (ดอกทานตะวัน), and about modern political history in สาดสี (‘splashing colour’). He is a member of RapCon, a collective of six rappers who produce music about social and political issues. The group was set up earlier this year, to campaign for a new constitution drafted by an elected committee. (The ‘Con’ in RapCon stands for ‘constitution’.)

Orientalism:Between Fact and Fantasy

Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this month, and runs until next year. With almost 200 items on display, it’s probably the largest survey exhibition of Orientalist art. It’s also significant for its focus on Orientalist decorative arts and fashion in addition to the familiar paintings of Jean-Léon Gérôme and his contemporaries. The Met’s exhibition catalogue, written by Deniz Beyazit, Maryam Ekhtiar, and Asher Miller, features full-page images and an essay on Orientalist design.

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. Extracts from the book have already been published in The New York Times, including 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 book extracts — that unauthorised recordings from inside the Situation Room were leaked to Haberman and Swan, in an unprecedented breach of White House security.

In an interview to promote the book, Haberman said that she was particularly proud of their reporting of meetings held at the Smithsonian, which, she emphasised, had not been recorded or transcribed. The book’s account of the Smithsonian meetings doesn’t include lengthy direct quotations, perhaps indicating that the Situation Room quotes are indeed sourced from audio recordings.

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.

Disclosure Day

A new Steven Spielberg potential summer blockbuster was bound to be a highly anticipated release. But unfortunately, Disclosure Day doesn’t live up to the hype.

The chase sequences are unrealistic, with our heroes escaping completely unscathed in the nick of time. The sentimental Spielbergian elements — childhood homes, messages from cute animals, and even fairy tales — feel completely out of place in a film aimed at teenagers and adults. The alien imagery — Roswell and crop circles — is unoriginal.

Too much, including the conveniently all-powerful alien ‘device’, and the supposed North Korean nuclear threat, remains unexplained or underdeveloped. And the script is too clunky: Spielberg clearly wanted to highlight the importance of empathy, but he didn’t need to spell it out so directly.

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.