What the Doc! 2 — The International Documentary Film Festival Thailand (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์ สารคดีนานาชาติ แห่งประเทศไทย) — will take place in Bangkok from 3rd to 13th September, a year after the first What the Doc! festival. Screenings will be held at Century Sukhumvit, and at the new Doc Club and Friends cinema that’s due to open this month at Cloud 11. (After the closure of Doc Club and Pub in 2024, the venue has relocated to Cloud 11 under the new name Doc Club and Friends.) The festival will include Thunska Pansittivorakul’s new film Are We Monsters? (อสูร) at Century on 9th September, followed by a Q&A with Thunska.
What the Doc! 2 will also include the premiere of Buariyate Eamkamol’s Images of Fire (ร่องรอยไฟ), a self-reflexive short film in which he revisits the circumstances surrounding the killing of protesters by military snipers in April and May 2010. Buariyate’s film will be screened at Century on 7th September (followed by a Q&A with the director), and at Doc Club and Friends on 12th September.
The Dutch artist Armando coined the phrase ‘guilty landscapes’ to describe spaces that bore silent witness to past violence. Buariyate and other Thai directors have returned to these politically and emotionally charged locations as part of a reckoning with the unresolved trauma of 2010.
The Dutch artist Armando coined the phrase ‘guilty landscapes’ to describe spaces that bore silent witness to past violence. Buariyate and other Thai directors have returned to these politically and emotionally charged locations as part of a reckoning with the unresolved trauma of 2010.
Images of Fire is Buariyate’s fourth film that touches on the 2010 violence, after A Fire 9 Kilometers Away, Isekai (อิเซไก), and Red Is the Orangest Colour. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of the April–May 2010 events by Thai filmmakers in more detail.)
What the Doc! 2’s poster also refers to the 2010 military crackdown: it features a portrait of one of those who died on 10th April 2010 (Maew), painted by Tawan Wattuya. The painting is from Tawan’s Red Faces series, shown at the Khon Kaen Manifesto (ขอนแก่น แมนิเฟสโต้) and Amnesia exhibitions in 2019.
What the Doc! 2’s poster also refers to the 2010 military crackdown: it features a portrait of one of those who died on 10th April 2010 (Maew), painted by Tawan Wattuya. The painting is from Tawan’s Red Faces series, shown at the Khon Kaen Manifesto (ขอนแก่น แมนิเฟสโต้) and Amnesia exhibitions in 2019.