The Strange Facts Of An Estranged Land

The 13th International Conference on Thai Studies, at Chiang Mai's International Exhibition & Convention Centre, will include three days of film screenings. The Strange Facts Of An Estranged Land begins on 16th July with A Thai Society Through A Cinematic Perspective, a programme of short films selected and introduced by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Anocha Suwichakornpong's By The Time It Gets Dark and Patporn Phoothong's documentary Respectfully Yours will be shown on 17th July; both films are responses to the 6th October 1976 Thammasat University massacre, and they will be followed by The Forgotten, a discussion about how that event has been marginalised in the past forty years. (Anocha's acclaimed debut film was Mundane History; Patporn is currently working on a documentary about the events leading up to the Thammasat massacre.)

On 18th July, Nontawat Numbenchapol will introduce a screening of his documentary By The River, which was shown on ThaiPBS on 28th November 2014. Nontawat's previous documentary, Boundary, was politically sensitive, and the subject of By The River is no less controversial: it highlights the water pollution caused by a lead mine in Kanchanaburi. (Mining companies sued Thai news organisations last year and this year over similar reports of water contamination.)