2025 is just around the corner, and it marks Dateline Bangkok’s twentieth year online. It’s hard to imagine, but back when this blog began back in 2005, Thaksin Shinawatra was prime minister (whatever happened to him...?), Siam Paragon and Suvarnabhumi airport weren’t open yet, and Moo Deng hadn’t been born.
The past two decades have been a period of political polarisation, with coups in 2006 and 2014, and violent crackdowns on protesters in 2010. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping political moment in recent memory came in 2019, when a Thaksin proxy party attempted to nominate Princess Ubolratana as prime minister. Sadly, the cycle of street protests, judicial overreach, and military intervention is likely to continue.
On the other hand, I have fond memories of many film events, including a marathon 24-hour programme of short films over a single weekend in 2018, various clandestine screenings of controversial films, and the World Class Cinema (ทึ่ง! หนังโลก) seasons at the much-missed Scala cinema. And did I really fly to Singapore in 2019 just to see one twenty-minute Thai film?!
There have been plenty of cultural highlights over the last twenty years. My joint favourites are Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and Rap Against Dictatorship’s anthemic single My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี), which was released in 2018 and instantly went viral online.
On a personal note, Thai Cinema Uncensored, published in 2020, told the full story of Thai film censorship for the first time. Dateline Bangkok’s archive now contains thousands of articles about films, books, art, media, music, censorship, and politics. The average number of readers is around 1,000 per day, and if you’re reading this, you’re one of them, so thank you very much!
The past two decades have been a period of political polarisation, with coups in 2006 and 2014, and violent crackdowns on protesters in 2010. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping political moment in recent memory came in 2019, when a Thaksin proxy party attempted to nominate Princess Ubolratana as prime minister. Sadly, the cycle of street protests, judicial overreach, and military intervention is likely to continue.
On the other hand, I have fond memories of many film events, including a marathon 24-hour programme of short films over a single weekend in 2018, various clandestine screenings of controversial films, and the World Class Cinema (ทึ่ง! หนังโลก) seasons at the much-missed Scala cinema. And did I really fly to Singapore in 2019 just to see one twenty-minute Thai film?!
There have been plenty of cultural highlights over the last twenty years. My joint favourites are Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, and Rap Against Dictatorship’s anthemic single My Country Has (ประเทศกูมี), which was released in 2018 and instantly went viral online.
On a personal note, Thai Cinema Uncensored, published in 2020, told the full story of Thai film censorship for the first time. Dateline Bangkok’s archive now contains thousands of articles about films, books, art, media, music, censorship, and politics. The average number of readers is around 1,000 per day, and if you’re reading this, you’re one of them, so thank you very much!
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