MAIIAM in Chiang Mai continues its Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest (รอยทางเก่าในป่าลึก) season on 10th October, with a new programme screening every weekend until 1st November that includes the classic film Tongpan (ทองปาน).
The new programme is titled Plows and Seams (รอยไถและจักร). The first part of Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest, Blinding Flash and Echo Fire (แสงวาบและเสียงก้อง), was shown last month. The screenings are part of MAIIAM’s exhibition A Reconfigured Archive (จดหมายเหตุนอกบรรทัด), commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the events that took place on 6th October 1976 at Thammasat University.
The new programme is titled Plows and Seams (รอยไถและจักร). The first part of Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest, Blinding Flash and Echo Fire (แสงวาบและเสียงก้อง), was shown last month. The screenings are part of MAIIAM’s exhibition A Reconfigured Archive (จดหมายเหตุนอกบรรทัด), commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the events that took place on 6th October 1976 at Thammasat University.
Tongpan
Tongpan is a realistic dramatisation of a seminar that took place in 1975, which was organised to debate the construction of the Pa Mong dam on the Mekong river. The eponymous central character is a farmer who lost his land due to a previous dam. (Ultimately, the Pa Mong project was abandoned, though this was a Pyrrhic victory for environmental campaigners, as dozens of hydroelectric dams are currently under construction.)
Tongpan was a product of the brief period of political freedom following the end of military rule in 1973, though by the time filming had been completed in 1977, another junta had seized power, and the film was banned. Its prologue captures the optimism of 1973 (“A military junta fled into exile”), though this is contrasted by an epilogue that describes the return of military rule (“shortly after the shooting of this film, a violent coup d’etat of a magnitude never before seen in Thailand brought an end to Thailand’s three-year experiment with democracy”).
Tongpan has previously been shown at Noir Row Art Space, Cinema Oasis, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and the Thai Film Archive (most recently in 2024). It was also screened last year in Khon Kaen and earlier this year in Chiang Mai.
Tongpan was a product of the brief period of political freedom following the end of military rule in 1973, though by the time filming had been completed in 1977, another junta had seized power, and the film was banned. Its prologue captures the optimism of 1973 (“A military junta fled into exile”), though this is contrasted by an epilogue that describes the return of military rule (“shortly after the shooting of this film, a violent coup d’etat of a magnitude never before seen in Thailand brought an end to Thailand’s three-year experiment with democracy”).
Tongpan has previously been shown at Noir Row Art Space, Cinema Oasis, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and the Thai Film Archive (most recently in 2024). It was also screened last year in Khon Kaen and earlier this year in Chiang Mai.
