“Grasping at straws...”

Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal has been dismissed by the judge hearing the case. Trump is not entitled to file the suit again, so the judge’s decision has brought the case to an end and vindicated the Journal’s right to publish its story about Trump and the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

In a written judgement issued yesterday, Southern District of Florida judge Darrin P. Gayles said: “As President Trump has not plausibly alleged that each Defendant made defamatory statements with actual malice, the Amended Complaint must be dismissed. And because this is President Trump’s second attempt to allege his claims, the Court finds that dismissal with prejudice is appropriate.”

Trump originally sued the newspaper last year after it reported that he had sent salacious letter on Epstein’s fiftieth birthday. The case was initially dismissed in April, after 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. In his first dismissal, Gayles wrote: “The Complaint comes nowhere close to this standard. Quite the opposite.” “Grasping at straws” was his equally direct assessment in yesterday’s judgement.

Trump filed an ammended lawsuit in May. The case relates to a front-page WSJ story published (in late editions) on 18th July 2025, quoting from Trump’s birthday greeting to Epstein: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump’s message was enclosed within a drawing of the outline of a nude woman, and he 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 revised lawsuit, 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.

Bangkok Art Biennale 2026Angels and Mara

After Beyond Bliss (สุขสะพรั่ง พลังอาร์ต) in 2018, Escape Routes (ศิลป์สร้าง ทางสุข) in 2020, Chaos:Calm (โกลาหล:สงบสุข) in 2022, and Nurture Gaia (รักษา กายา) in 2024, the fifth Bangkok Art Biennale’s theme is Angels and Mara (นางฟ้าผจญมาร). 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 29th October, and runs until 28th February next year.

One of the highlights is Liquid Skies, a clay sculpture and accompanying video showing the process of making the artwork. The piece is from Japanese artist Mika Tamori’s Psychotropism series, a term derived from tropism, the phenomenon whereby an internal turns towards the source of an external stimulus. Psychotropism is one of dozens of ‘isms’ of modern and contemporary art.

The Wayward Travelers

The Wayward Travelers, a retrospective of four short films by Weerapat Sakolvaree, will be shown on 7th November at Doc Club and Friends in Bangkok, as the third screening in their Your Cinema strand. The programme 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).

The Wayward Travelers was also shown at Arai Arai in Bangkok earlier this year. 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.

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation is the second part of the Oblivion series, and a sequel to The Original Texts. It features a voiceover narrating the circumstances of three key milestones in Thai political history — the 1932 revolution, 14th October 1973, and 6th October 1976 — though they are told as a fable involving wild animals.

A pigeon flies between various Bangkok buildings, as if witnessing the historic events described in the narration. As in Nostalgia, the effect is similar to Panya’s White Bird, in which an origami bird is also seen at historically significant locations around Bangkok.

When the pigeon lands on Democracy Monument, the voiceover describes “one October morning” (14th October 1973) when “Mad Dogs” attacked thousands of student protesters. The pigeon then flies to Thammasat University, where “the Wild Tigers came out to hunt.”

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation was previously shown at the group exhibition Spacing the Inherent (การเว้นระยะห่างโดยธรรมชาติ) at Art4C in Bangkok, and at Wildtype 2026. It will be screened online as part of this year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) on 28th November.

Short Film Marathon 30

The annual Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) begins on 30th October, and almost 600 films will be shown online, in alphabetical order, until 3rd December. The cream of the crop will then be selected for the 30th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้น ครั้งที่ 30) at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya.

This year’s festival runs from 5th to 27th December. Last year’s Marathon also received around 600 submissions, as did the 2024 and 2023 events, and around 400 films were submitted in 2022.

Highlights this year include three films from the Politix strand at Wildtype 2026. 8 (๘) will be shown on 1st November, Letter from Congo (จดหมายจากคองโก) on 8th November, and A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation (ย้ายรัง) on 28th November.

8

Pattanapong Khongsak’s film 8 combines historical material with modern technology, using generative AI to visualise the past. This hybrid documentary has no narration, so key events are explained using written captions.

Photos of major political milestones — 6th October 1976, the yellow-shirt and red-shirt protests, the ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ campaign, and the 2006 and 2014 coup announcements — are solarised and rendered as 3D images. Pattanapong also uses bright red and blue tinting, as he did in Bad Taste (โอรส).

The AI manipulation makes the familiar images even more impactful, and dramatic reconstructions help to clarify the details. One sequence strays into deepfake territory: a newsreel-style scene of Democracy Monument engulfed by a tsunami, like a silent disaster movie.

The main focus is on the unexplained death or assassination of Rama VIII, the subsequent smear campaign against Pridi Banomyong, and the wrongful conviction of three men for conspiracy to murder. A caption tells us that the men were executed “8 years, 8 months, 8 days since the King’s death” — hence the 8 in the film’s title. (Its subtitle, The Silence of the Goats, is a pun on The Silence of the Lambs.)

Letter from Congo

In Buariyate Eamkamol’s Letter from Congo, a narrator reads a letter from a woman in colonial-era Belgium describing a cruel monarch. The film also features solarised footage of red-shirt protesters travelling from Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

The final image is a statue of King Kawila, a former ruler of Chiang Mai, and the effect is similar to the ending of the short film Re-presentation (ผีมะขาม ไพร่ฟ้า ประชาธิปไตย ในคืนที่ลมพัดหวน) by Chai Chaiyachit and Chisanucha Kongwailap. Letter from Congo was previously shown earlier this year at TCDC Commons in Srinakarin.

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation is part of Weerapat Sakolvaree’s Oblivion (เลือน) series, the first of which was The Original Texts (บทประพันธ์ดั้งเดิม). A voiceover narrates the circumstances of three key milestones in Thai political history — the 1932 revolution, 14th October 1973, and 6th October 1976 — though they are told as a fable involving wild animals.

A pigeon flies between various Bangkok buildings, as if witnessing the historic events described in the narration. The effect is similar to Panya Zhu’s short film White Bird (นกตัวนั้นยังสบายดีไหม), in which an origami bird is also seen at historically significant locations around Bangkok.

When the pigeon lands on Democracy Monument, the voiceover describes “one October morning” (14th October 1973) when “Mad Dogs” attacked thousands of student protesters. The pigeon then flies to Thammasat University, where “the Wild Tigers came out to hunt.”

A Pigeon’s Journey on the Birth of a Nation was previously shown at The Wayward Travelers, a Weerapat retrospective. It was also shown at the group exhibition Spacing the Inherent (การเว้นระยะห่างโดยธรรมชาติ) at Art4C in Bangkok.

A Man Called Tone

Somboonsuk Niyomsiri’s classic film A Man Called Tone (โทน) will be shown at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya on Christmas Eve. It has previously been screened there in 2025 and — to mark Somboonsuk’s ninetieth birthday — in 2023. It has also been shown at Sala Chaloem Thani in July, and at Doc Club and Pub in 2022.

The release of A Man Called Tone in 1970 was a turning point in Thai cinema history. Filmed in widescreen 35mm, it marked the end of the 16mm era, a formulaic mode of production that had dominated the industry for the previous twenty years. Stylistically, its modern approach to characterisation, acting, narrative, music, and cinematography was equally groundbreaking.

Doc Club and Friends

Doc Club and Friends, the new boutique cinema at Cloud 11 in Bangkok, will show two Stanley Kubrick classics next month: Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket. (Dr. Strangelove was previously shown at Bangkok Screening Room in 2017, and Full Metal Jacket was shown at Cinema Winehouse in 2018.)

The screenings in November are part of a Kubrick retrospective at Doc Club and Friends. Barry Lyndon was shown there earlier this year, and The Shining will be screened there this week. Doc Club also organised outdoor screenings of The Shining and 2001 in March.

Outdoor

Patthakarn Sadubtham released his new photobook Outdoor (เอาท์ดอร์) today. The book is limited to 100 numbered copies (mine being no. 10).

Patthakarn uses the pseudonym Shotbyly, and his large-format photozine Auey Kaab (เอื้อยค้าบบบ˜) was published a few months ago, also in an edition of 100. The zine features photographs shot during the filming of his short film of the same name, which was screened at the Thailand International LGBTQ+ Film and TV Festival 2026.

He has also produced a series of four Shotbyly Vintage magazines, each limited to fifty copies. After the softcore vol. 1, subsequent issues have been more explicit. Vol. 2, Tum, was a portfolio of photos of model Theeraphat Khajornsuwan. The theme of vol. 3 was Paradiso, and vol. 4’s was The Secret Room (ห้องหฤหรรษ์).

Outdoor was designed by Patthakarn’s regular collaborator Oat Montien, who will show the Auey Kaab short film at his second Porn lecture at Sala Saneha in Bangkok tomorrow. Oat also produced The Secret Room and curated Patthakarn’s Boy x Therapy photography exhibition.

“Entertainocracy...”

Piyabutr Saengkanokkul coined a new political pejorative this month: “Entertainocracy” (“บันเทิงธิปไตย”), to describe politicians who act more like influencers than MPs. Piyabutr, a co-founder of Future Forward, made the comments in an essay he posted on Facebook on 5th October. ‘Entertainocracy’ joins a long list of Thai puns on the word ‘democracy’.

Night of the Living Dead: The Official Story of the Film

Doc Club and Friends in Bangkok will show George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead on 30th October, and 4th and 7th November. It was previously screened at GalileOasis in 2024, and at Cinema Winehouse in 2018.

Simon Braund’s Night of the Living Dead: The Official Story of the Film, a comprehensive production history of Romero’s classic, was published earlier this year. It features hundreds of illustrations, including two dozen pages from Romero’s shooting script.

Night of the Living Dead is arguably the most influential horror film of the modern era. (It’s no coincidence that Kim Newman’s book Nightmare Movies discusses the horror genre since 1968, the year of the film’s release.) Braund describes the film as “a bleak, uncompromising nightmare that seemed to encapsulate the anxieties of the time.”

The only sour note in Braund’s book is his oddly vitriolic description of Cahiers du Cinéma magazine: he calls it “a bastion of pretention [sic] so up its own derriere a director’s choice of shoelaces can ignite a debate on metaphysics”. Braund (who also wrote Orson Welles Portfolio) is clearly not a Cahiers du Cinéma subscriber.

Halloween Movie Night

Bangkok’s Treehouse bar and social club will host a Halloween Movie Night from 28th to 31st October, showing a series of classic horror films. Highlights include Wes Craven’s Scream on 30th October and, of course, John Carpenter’s Halloween on 31st October.

Scream was last shown in Bangkok in 2023. Halloween was screened here in 2016.