Identity Unbound: ท้าว/ข้าม, 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.
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.