Finist the Brave Falcon

A playwright and theatre director were arrested in Russia last week, on charges of glorifying terrorism and promoting radical feminism. The charges related to the play Finist the Brave Falcon (Финист Ясный сокол), directed by Zhenya Berkovich and written by Svetlana Petriichuk, in which a Russian woman marries an Islamic State fighter in Syria. Berkovich and Petriichuk were arrested in Moscow on 5th May, and denied bail. They face up to seven years in jail if found guilty. The award-winning play, whose title comes from a Russian folk tale, was first performed in 2019.

Life and Death: Art and the Body in Contemporary China

Think of a shocking or scandalous work of art. An artwork that’s provocative, controversial, or offensive. Whichever painting, photograph, or installation you have in mind, its shock value almost certainly pales in comparison with the art in Life and Death: Art and the Body in Contemporary China. Silvia Fuk’s book, published in 2013, is the first to examine the use of human remains, ashes, and blood by contemporary Chinese artists who “challenge the boundaries of art, morality and law to the extreme.” The book features rare photographs of some of these artworks, though they’re all black-and-white.

Yang Zhichao used a mould to create dice made from his own congealed blood, in a performance titled Macao (澳門). Sun Yuang and Peng Yu collected unclaimed ashes from crematoria, and mixed them with plaster to sculpt One or All (一個或所有), an architectural column. They also transfused some of their own blood into the bodies of Siamese twins, for a performance titled Link of the Body (連體). For Ruan, Xiao Yu grafted a baby’s head onto a bird’s body. (Ruan, which also appears in The Museum of Scandals, is a Chinese neologism that the artist coined to represent this chimera.)

Zhu Yu is China’s most extreme contemporary artist. He suspended a human arm from the ceiling for his installation Pocket Theology (袖珍神学 图片; not included in Life and Death). For Intellectual Brain (全部知識學的基礎), he puréed six human brains and sold the resulting paste in jam jars labelled ‘do not eat’. Infamously, he ignored his own advice with Eating People (吃⼈), photographs of him apparently eating a foetus. Even more offensive was Sacrifice (献祭), for which he artificially inseminated a surrogate mother and seemingly fed their aborted foetus to a dog. (Did Zhu Yu use real foetuses in his work, as he claimed in the Channel 4 documentary Beijing Swings? This is difficult to verify, though Fuk takes him at face value.)

Art such as this, transgressive to the point of illegality, has very few equivalents. Perhaps the only comparative example is Rick Gibson, who was convicted of outraging public decency after exhibiting two tiny foetuses as earrings at a London gallery. Fuk doesn’t cite Gibson in Life and Death, though she does discuss other less extreme artists in relation to the Chinese works in question. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s morgue videos are examined in detail, and she suggests Marc Quinn’s Self (a cast of the artist’s head made from his frozen blood) as an inspiration for Macao. Ruangsak Anuwatwimon’s sculpture Transformations, made—like One or All—from human ashes, is not included.

Thai Queer Cinema Odyssey

The Thai Film Archive at Salaya will screen a season of gay films thoughout May and June, under the Thai Queer Cinema Odyssey (การเดินทางของหนังเควียร์ไทย) banner. This will be a rare chance to see the pioneering films of the 1980s—The Last Song (เพลงสุดท้าย), Anguished Love (รักทรมาน), and I Am a Man (ฉันผู้ชายนะยะ)—that constituted the first wave of Thai queer cinema. Also, Tanwarin Sukkhapisit’s Insects in the Backyard (อินเซค อินเดอะ แบ็คยาร์ด) will be shown on 17th and 30th June. The highlights of the season, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady (สัตว์ประหลาด) and Anocha Suwichakornpong’s Mundane History (เจ้านกกระจอก), will both be screened in 35mm. (Tropical Malady will be shown on 24th and 30th June, and Mundane History on 20th and 28th July.)

Insects in the Backyard

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 Thai 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 dismissed the censors’ view that the film was immoral. Following the court’s ruling, it was shown at House Rama, Bangkok Screening Room, Sunandha Rajabhat University, ChangChui, and Lido Connect. It was shown at the Thai Film Archive in 2018 and 2020.

Tropical Malady

Internationally, Tropical Malady is one of Apichatpong’s most acclaimed films, though it had rather lacklustre distribution in Thailand. In a Thai Cinema Uncensored interview, he discussed its disappointing domestic theatrical release: “I think, from Tropical Malady, there’s this issue of releasing the film, and marketing, that I don’t like. And also the studio was not interested in the film, anyway, because there’s no selling point: there’s no tiger, there’s no sex, so it’s very personal.”

Tropical Malady: The Book, a deluxe coffee-table book published in 2019, raised the film’s Thai profile. It was previously shown in 35mm at Alliance Française, and it has been screened several times at the Thai Film Archive, including in 2009 and 2018.

Mundane History

Mundane History was the first Thai film to receive the restrictive ‘20’ age rating, though similar content has since been passed with an ‘18’ certificate. One of the greatest of all Thai films, it was previously screened at Warehouse 30 in 2018 and at Bangkok Screening Room in 2017. Anocha’s Krabi, 2562 (กระบี่ ๒๕๖๒) will also be shown at the Archive, on 15th and 26th August.

Siti Nuramira Abdullah

Malaysian comedian Siti Nuramira Abdullah has been fined 8,000 ringgit (equivalent to $1,800) for offending religious sentiments. On 4th June last year, as the opener to her set at the Crackhouse comedy club in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, she announced that she was a Muslim and then removed her Islamic tudung headscarf and traditional Malaysian baju kurung dress, to reveal a short skirt and low-cut blouse.

Siti Nuramira was held in custody for ten days following her arrest last year. If she had not paid the fine, she would have been sentenced to four months’ imprisonment. The Crackhouse audience cheered and applauded her routine, though she pleaded guilty to avoid the more serious charge of disrupting social harmony (the offence for which she was originally arrested).

The Malaysian government has banned dozens of books over the past decade, most famously Faisal Tehrani’s novel Perempuan Nan Bercinta (‘the beloved lady’) and cartoon books by Zunar including Sapuman. An exhibition of Zunar’s cartoons was also closed by the authorities.

Hoon Payon / Pook Payon

When the Thai horror film Hoon Payon (หุ่นพยนต์) faced censorship and a restrictive ‘20’ rating, its distributors announced a plan to release it simultaneously in two versions: Hoon Payon—with the ‘20’ rating imposed by the censors—and Pook Payon (ปลุกพยนต์), with a lower ‘18’ rating though paradoxically four minutes longer. Both versions contain the same level of violence, which is much less than that of many other Thai horror films—such as the gory Art of the Devil II (ลองของ), for example, which was passed by the censors before the rating system existed—making the ‘20’ rating seem rather punitive.

Mindful of how monk characters have often been censored in Thai films (as discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored), the studio had already taken precautions at the script stage. The film stresses that the abbot (Luang Nha) and his accomplice (Tudd), who are ultimately responsible for the black magic at the heart of the plot, are not real monks. As another monk (Gla) tells the abbot: “You are never ordained to become a monk” [sic]. Similarly, the film revolves around a local superstition, not the Buddhist religion. The various killings are carried out—spoiler alert—by a lay character (Tae), a novice (Kun), and a monk (Tee), though the novice and monk are possessed spirits, not living people.

Despite this, the censors initially required edits to several scenes in Hoon Payon before granting the ‘20’ rating: novice monks fighting and swearing while wearing saffron robes, novices bullying another young boy, a novice hugging his mother, and the recitation of one of the Buddhist precepts during a murder scene. They also raised concerns about the actors playing novices all having eyebrows (as monks are required to shave their body hair before ordination), and references to the Wat Teppayon temple were also deemed inappropriate.

After negotiations between the censors and the film studio, some of this ‘unacceptable’ material was cut, though some remains intact (in both versions). The novices—and, indeed, the full-fledged monks—still have eyebrows, as presumably it was too expensive to remove them all with CGI. Novices are shown swearing (“Hia!”/“Shit!”). One novice (Kun) bullies a young boy (Tae), calling him a “retard”. Another novice (Breeze) hugs his mother, comforting and protecting her. The second Buddhist precept (“stealing is a sin”) is recited by Tae while he hangs a monk (Tudd) for stealing temple funds.

As part of its marketing campaign, the studio claimed on Facebook: “ไม่ตัดฉาก!!” (‘no scenes cut!!’), and it’s true that no entire scenes have been removed, though some individual shots have been censored. In both versions, the intensity of the bullying scene has been reduced: shots of Kun spoon-feeding Tae, and the protagonist (Tham) raising his fists to fight the bully, have both been replaced with reaction shots. The temple sign has also been changed, using CGI: the original sign (“วัดเทพพยนต์”/‘Teppayon temple’) became “เทพพยนต์” (‘Teppayon’). But although the sign was modified, the soundtrack wasn’t: in both versions, the Thai dialogue (“วัดเทพพยนต์”) and the English subtitles (“Teppayon temple”) use the temple’s full name.

Most of the extra footage in Pook Payon is barely noticeable, even after watching both versions back-to-back. But in the most conspicuous additional scene, clearly tacked on to appease the censors—with earnest, didactic dialogue, out of place in a horror film—a lay character (Jate) resolves to become a monk, and Gla tells him: “Becoming a monk is good... it’s best that we hold onto Buddhism.” Jate answers with equal sincerity: “That’s right. I’ll always support Buddhism.” Amen!

Dominion v. Fox News:“Lies have consequences...”

US cable TV channel Fox News and election technology company Dominion Voting Systems have reached a settlement in their defamation case, with Fox agreeing to pay Dominion $787.5 million. The Wall Street Journal reported at the weekend that a settlement was being discussed, and judge Eric Davis unexpectedly delayed the start of the trial, in a possible attempt to encourage settlement negotiations, though jurors were sworn in yesterday and the settlement was announced only at the last minute.

Dominion sued Fox in 2021, accusing the network of broadcasting “a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies” and “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions” in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election: “Fox recklessly disregarded the truth. Indeed, Fox knew these statements about Dominion were lies.” The lawsuit cited false conspiracy theories that Dominion had rigged the election, claims spread by Donald Trump and his lawyers in the final months of his presidency and endorsed on Fox News shows.

Dominion had sought $1.6 billion in damages, which was widely considered unrealistic, even given the egregious nature of the Fox News broadcasts under dispute. Thus, the $787.5 million settlement, which represents almost half of the total damages originally sought, is extremely high. (As a company, Dominion is valued at less than $100 million.) The settlement implies either that Fox feared losing the defamation case and potentially paying more in damages, or—more likely—that the network sought to avoid the embarrassment of a public trial.

The trial was due to take place in Wilmington, Delaware, a city with a largely Democrat population. (Wilmingtonians voted 2:1 in favour of the Democrats in the 2020 presidential election, and President Joe Biden has a house in the city.) This suggests that the jurors were unlikely to be sympathetic to Fox News and its pro-Republican content. Also, in his pretrial ruling last month, the judge wrote that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true”: an emphatic rejection of the Fox News defence of fair comment.

Once the settlement had been reached yesterday, Fox said in a statement: “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” This acceptance of the pretrial ruling, albeit in vague terms, is an unusual concession, as out-of-court settlements do not routinely include admissions of liability. This, coupled with the enormity of the settlement, suggests that Fox was keen to avoid potentially damaging witness testimony from its executives and prime-time hosts.

Fox’s defence had already been undermined by the release of hundreds of emails and text messages, submitted in evidence before the trial began. Crucially, these messages demonstrate that the hosts gave airtime to the conspiracy theories about Dominion software despite personally disbelieving them, which could demonstrate actual malice (the legal term for knowingly making false and defamatory statements). In a text message on 9th November 2020, for example, Tucker Carlson wrote: “The software shit is absurd.” Conversely, on his show later that day, he said: “We don’t know anything about the software that many say was rigged.” (Fox defended itself in a previous defamation case by arguing that Carlson’s show should be viewed with “an appropriate amount of skepticism”.)

In a statement outside court yesterday, Dominion’s lawyer Justin Nelson said: “The truth matters. Lies have consequences. Over two years ago, a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories, causing grevious harm to Dominion and the country.” Dominion is also suing another right-wing cable channel, OAN, for $1.6 billion, though OAN lacks the funds to offer a Fox-style settlement. Another election technology company, Smartmatic, is suing Fox for $2.7 billion.

The $787.5 million settlement makes this the largest media defamation case in US legal history. The previous record was the $222.7 million awarded in damages to Money Management Analytical Research in 1997, after The Wall Street Journal accused the company of fraud in a 21st October 1993 article by Laura Jereski (headlined “Regulators Study Texas Securities Firm and Its Louisiana Pension Fund Trades”). In that case, however, the damages were reduced on appeal to $22.7 million. (In the UK, libel damages were at their highest in the 1980s, though the amounts were paltry in comparison to the US.)

Home

Canadian band Numenorean caused controversy in 2016 by using a post-mortem photograph of a two-year-old girl as the cover for their debut album Home. (On the CD version, the exploitative cover is inside a slipcase.) Kristen MacDonald was killed by her father in 1970, in a well-documented murder case, and the band explained their use of her image in the album’s liner notes: “Perhaps what we are really searching for is the innocence that we once had as a child. However, since we are incapable of ever getting that back, the only place we can perhaps find this comfort once more is in death.”

The first photograph of a dead body on a record cover was perhaps the Dead Kennedys’ single Holiday in Cambodia, released in 1980. The 12" single appropriated Neal Ulevich’s image of a public lynching after the 6th October 1976 massacre. Another notorious lynching appeared on the cover of the Public Enemy single Hazy Shade of Criminal in 1992: Lawrence Beitler’s 1930 photograph of the hangings of J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S. Smith in Indiana. (This photo also inspired the writing of Strange Fruit, one of the most powerful protest songs in popular music history.)

There have also been at least three examples of severed heads on album covers, released in consecutive years. Pungent Stench’s 1991 album Been Caught Buttering used Joel-Peter Witkin’s photograph Le baiser (‘the kiss’)—a decapitated head sawn in half, appearing to kiss itself—as its cover image. This was followed in 1992 by Naked City’s Grand Guignol album cover, which features a photograph of a decapitated head from the Stanley Burns archive of medical imagery. Then, in 1993, Brujeria bought the reproduction rights to a photo of the head of a murder victim from the Mexican tabloid magazine ¡Alarma! (‘warning!’), for the cover of their album Matando Güeros (‘killing whiteys’).

UK goregrind band Carcass used montages of autopsy photographs as the covers for their albums Reek of Putrefaction in 1988 and Symphonies of Sickness a year later, both of which were seized when police raided Earache Records in 1991. The raid was prompted by the earlier seizure of cover art for the Pain Killer album Guts of a Virgin. That image—an autopsy photo of a woman with her intestines exposed, in a tasteless pun on the album title—was destroyed by customs as potentially obscene. (The uncensored photo was used for the Japanese CD release.) Clearly, goregrind record sleeves are as gross as their titles, and Last Days of Humanity’s albums, such as Hymns of Indigestible Suppuration from 2000, are particularly nauseating examples.

PTSD

PTSD, a new exhibition at Cartel Artspace in Bangkok, features paintings and a video installation by Petchnin Sukjan and an anonymous artist who is currently facing a lèse-majesté charge. The exhibition is bookended by Break Your Silence, crowdfunded performances by the Unidentified Theatre group.

PTSD, in this context, stands for “Parliament / Treacherous / Sedition / Dictators”, and the exhibition is an artistic response to state violence and authoritarian politics. The paintings include images of yellow rubber ducks (symbols of the recent anti-government protest movement), which also featured in Jirapatt Aungsumalee’s exhibition Dark. In one painting with a potential symbolic meaning, a blue figure sits in a comfortable chair while another man languishes under his foot.

The five-minute video installation begins with footage of King Rama X being interviewed while on a walkabout in 2020. Journalist Jonathan Miller’s question about the protesters is audible, though the answer—“We love them all the same”—is heavily distorted. Co-curator Tanatorn Kongseng’s artist’s statement could be interpreted as a reply to that comment: “Don’t say you love us if you are still against us”.

The video footage is pixellated, as were images of King Rama IX in Neti Wichiansaen’s documentary Democracy after Death (ประชาธิปไตยหลังความตาย) and Natthapol Kitwarasai’s short film Coup d’état. It ends with a caption, “THE LAND OF COMPROMISE”, accompanied by the sound of a rubber bullet being fired by riot police. Again, this refers to a comment during the royal walkabout. A music video by Elevenfinger, ไอเหี้ย... ฆาตกร (‘damned... killer’), features a similarly ironic “LAND OF COMPROMISE” caption; the music video and the PTSD video installation both also include footage of violent police suppression of protesters.

PTSD opened on 25th March and closes on 10th April. The first Break Your Silence durational performance took place on 30th March, and another will be held on 8th April.

Break Your Silence:An Exploration of Topics Thai Artists Don’t Dare to Talk About

Last night, the Unidentified Theatre troupe held a durational performance art event at Cartel Artspace in Bangkok. The crowdfunded project, Break Your Silence: An Exploration of Topics Thai Artists Don’t Dare to Talk About, explored various sensitive social and political issues, and challenged the widespread self-censorship practised by mainstream Thai artists.

The performance culminated with the spray-painting of “112” and an anarchist symbol, in solidarity with a graffiti artist who was arrested on 28th March after he spray-painted the same content onto the outer wall of Bangkok’s Temple of the Emerald Buddha. (‘112’ refers to the lèse-majesté law, which is article 112 of the Thai criminal code.)

In an artist’s statement, Tassakorn Theratapdhewan (founder of Unidentified Theatre) highlights the undemocratic, violent nature of Thai politics: “we have a government that came to power through the barrel of a gun... This is the reason why the authoritarian government doesn’t serve the people, but rather does everything to silence them and oppress them. The people who protest on the streets are met with violence, tear gas, rubber bullets, and even worse”.

Break Your Silence is part of the PTSD exhibition being held at Cartel Artspace from 25th March to 10th April. (PTSD, in this context, stands for “Parliament / Treacherous / Sedition / Dictators”.) There will be another, more extensive, Break Your Silence performance at the same venue on 8th April, pending a further round of crowdfunding.

“112”

Posters calling for the abolition of the lèse-majesté law were removed from the National Book Fair in Bangkok yesterday, on the orders of a plainclothes police officer. Staff at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center removed nine posters from a stall run by The Commoner, before the event opened today. The fair runs until 9th April.

The posters featured a “112” logo, a reference to article 112 of the Thai criminal code. A graffiti artist was arrested on 28th March after he spray-painted “112” onto the outer wall of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. The temple is part of the Grand Palace compound, and therefore a highly symbolic and sensitive location for such a slogan.

This is the third time that police have confiscated items from stalls at the book fair. Last year, a banner featuring hashtags such as #รัฐบาลเผด็จการ (‘dictatorial government’) was removed from the Same Sky Books booth, and t-shirts were confiscated from Same Sky’s booth in 2014. (The Commoner previously published สมุดระบายสีเสรีภาพ/‘freedom colouring book’.)

Hoon Payon / Pook Payon

Hoon Payon (หุ่นพยนต์), the horror film whose theatrical release was blocked by Thai censors, will be released next month in an edited version, retitled Pook Payon (ปลุกพยนต์). The censors originally gave Hoon Payon a restrictive ‘20’ rating, requiring audiences to show ID before admittance, which director Phontharis Chotkijsadarsopon described as crazy (“บบ้าตาย”) in a Facebook post on 9th March. Pook Payon, on the other hand, has been rated ‘18’ after an extra four minutes of contextualising footage was added.

The National Film and Video Committee initially required several edits to Hoon Payon before permitting its release: novice monks fighting and swearing while wearing saffron robes, novices bullying another young boy, a novice hugging his mother, and the recitation of one of the Buddhist precepts during a murder scene. They also raised concerns about the actors playing novices all having eyebrows (as monks are required to shave their body hair before ordination), and references to the Wat Teppayon temple were also deemed unacceptable.

The case echoes that of Karma, a previous Thai horror film that was also retitled to appease the censors; its Thai title was changed from Arbat (อาบัติ) to Arpat (อาปัติ). Pook Payon will be released on 12th April, and Hoon Payon, with its ‘20’ rating, will be released on the same day. (The studio has published before and after shots online to illustrate the changes.) The only precedent for the simultaneous release strategy is the thriller In the Shadow of Naga (นาคปรก), which was also released in both ‘18’ and ‘20’-rated versions.

Five Star, the studio behind Pook Payon, is one of Thailand’s most prestigious film production companies—releasing critically acclaimed films by auteur directors like Wisit Sasanatieng and Pen-ek Ratanaruang—though in commercial terms it remains dwarfed by major studios such as Sahamongkol. In an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored, director Apichatpong Weerasethakul contrasted his experience of censorship with that of Pen-ek: Apichatpong’s film Blissfully Yours (สุดเสน่หา) was distributed by Sahamongkol, and thus received lenient treatment from the censors, while Pen-ek’s Ploy (พลอย)—a Five Star release—was given no such concessions.

“It was like setting a time bomb...”

Three people who sold a book about Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protest movement have all been jailed. They were among six people arrested in January, and had been held in detention until their trials began on 17th March. The three pleaded guilty, and they were sentenced on 20th March. In his summing up, judge Peter Law said that the book could have reignited the protest movement: “It was like setting a time bomb”.

Free HK Media founder Alan Keung, who had promoted the book online, received an eight-month sentence. Alex Lee, the owner of the booth where it was sold, was sentenced to five months. Lee’s wife Cannis Chan, who edited the book, was sentenced to ten months.

The untitled 300-page book, featuring photographs of the protests, went on sale on Christmas Day last year at a Lunar New Year fair at Ginza Plaza. It was distributed by the Shame on You Grocery Store (影衰mi杂货店), and forty-three copies were seized by police, who described it as “a seditious book about a series of riots”. (400 copies had been printed by Copyman.)

In 2021, the publishers of the Sheep Village (羊村) series of children’s books about the protests were also arrested on sedition charges. They were sentenced to nineteen months in prison last year, and earlier this month two men were arrested merely for possessing the books.

Sheep Village

Two men were arrested in Hong Kong yesterday, for the possession of seditious publications. The charges relate to the Sheep Village (羊村) series of children’s picture books published in 2021, and the men face up to a year in prison if found guilty. (The publishers of the Sheep Village books were convicted of sedition last year. The books are now being distributed from the UK, and are also available online in English translations. The publishers of another book are also awaiting trial in Hong Kong.)

One of the books, The Guardians of Sheep Village (羊村守衛者), is an allegory of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. Another, The Twelve Warriors of Sheep Village (羊村十二勇士), refers to a dozen Hong Kongers who were arrested in 2020 when they attempted to escape into exile by speedboat. The third book in the series, The Cleaners of Sheep Village (羊村清道夫), is a reference to medical workers who went on strike in an attempt to force Hong Kong to close its border with China at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sazandegi

The newspaper Sazandegi (سازندگی) was shut down by the Iranian regime last month after it reported on the country’s economic crisis. The subheading of a 20th February front-page story about the rising price of lamb—“گوشت چگونه از سفره طبقه متوسط و طبقه کارگر حذف شد؟” (‘why is meat missing from the tables of the middle and working classes?’)—led to the newspaper’s immediate suspension. Its permission to publish was reinstated on 1st March.

Sazandegi previously attracted controversy when it was sued by the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, over a front-page editorial and cartoon published on 26th May 2021. The drawing of the Speaker, by controversial cartoonist Hadi Haydari, suggested that he was anxious about, and therefore implicitly guilty of, allegations that he had interfered in the allocation of the budget.

Hoon Payon

The release of Hoon Payon (หุ่นพยนต์), a new Thai horror film, has been postponed after it was censored by the National Film and Video Committee. The censors required five edits to the film before permitting its release: references to the Wat Teppaton temple, novice monks fighting and swearing while wearing saffron robes, novices bullying another young boy, a novice hugging his mother, and the recitation of one of the Buddhist precepts during a murder scene. They also raised concerns about the actors playing novices all having eyebrows, as monks are required to shave their body hair before ordination.

Some of the censors’ concerns are in line with the censorship of previous Thai films featuring Buddhist monks: Karma, for example, was also censored for its misbehaving monks and for physical contact between a monk and a woman. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the almost 100-year relationship between Buddhism and banned films.) The censors’ objection to the novices’ eyebrows, on the other hand, seems over-sensitive and inconsistent. Mario Maurer, for instance, was not required to shave his eyebrows for his starring role as a monk in The Outrage (อุโมงค์ผาเมือง).

Hoon Payon had its premiere at Major Cineplex Ratchayothin on 7th March, followed by a post-screening discussion with director Phontharis Chotkijsadarsopon. Its theatrical release is now on hold, as the studio considers the censors’ verdict. Even if the required cuts were made, the film would receive a restrictive ‘20’ rating, requiring audiences to show ID before admittance, which Phontharis described as crazy (“บบ้าตาย”) in a post on Facebook yesterday. The Thai Film Director Association issued a statement yesterday, calling for an amendment to the Film and Video Act designating the National Film and Video Committee as purely a ratings body without the authority to cut or ban films.

ปฏิทินพระราชทาน(‘royal calendar’)

A Thai man was jailed for two years today, after being convicted of lèse-majesté for distributing a calendar featuring a cartoon duck. The 2021 desk calendar, published by the Khana Ratsadon pro-democracy protest group, was titled ปฏิทินพระราชทาน (‘royal calendar’), in what the police claimed was an attempt to imitate an official royal publication. The lèse-majesté conviction also related to five of the calendar’s cartoons, illustrating the months of January, March, April, May, and October. (The images cannot be reproduced or described, as this would constitute a repetition of the lèse-majesté offence.)

The convicted man was arrested on New Year’s Eve 2020, and he remains on bail pending an appeal. His lawyer had previously argued that the calendar was a parody of state institutions, and did not caricature King Rama X personally. This defence was always unlikely to succeed, though, given that the cartoon duck is depicted with a rather unambiguous “NO. 10” medal. The July and September cartoons, in particular, feature surprisingly thinly-veiled references to Rama IX and Rama X, respectively.

This is the fourth calendar to be confiscated by the Thai authorities in recent years. Wall calendars featuring photographs of former prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawawtra were seized in 2018 and 2016. In 2010, a wall calendar by the beer company Leo was accused of promoting alcohol in contravention of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.

Since the yellow duck calendar, there have been several other satirical cartoon animals in Thai popular culture. The cover of สมุดระบายสีเสรีภาพ (‘freedom colouring book’) shows an elephant painted blue, a colour with symbolic significance in Thailand. A monstrous spider that makes a split-second appearance in The Commoner’s music video รุ้ง (‘rainbow’) has a human face with a distinctive jawline.

“A seditious book about a series of riots...”

Six people arrested in Hong Kong on 17th January are facing sedition charges for selling a book documenting the city’s 2019–2020 pro-democracy protest movement. The untitled 300-page book went on sale on Christmas Day last year at a Lunar New Year fair at Ginza Plaza. It was distributed by the Shame on You Grocery Store (影衰mi杂货店), and forty-three copies were seized by police, who described it as “a seditious book about a series of riots”.

In 2021, the publishers of the Sheep Village (羊村) series of children’s books about the pro-democracy demonstrations were also arrested on sedition charges. (They were sentenced to nineteen months in prison last year.) The protest leaders—including Joshua Wong, a veteran of the 2014 ‘umbrella movement’—went on trial this week, charged under the Safeguarding National Security law imposed on Hong Kong by the Chinese government.

Tearing Down the Wall:Controversy and Censorship in Thai Cinema

Why does Thai soft power languish behind South Korea’s? That question has been asked repeatedly over the past few years, following the international successes of the Oscar-winning film Parasite (기생충) and the blockbuster Netflix series Squid Game (오징어 게임), the latest examples of a Korean wave (hallyu) that began in the 1990s. Tearing Down the Wall: Controversy and Censorship in Thai Cinema (ทลายกำแพง — ความขัดแย้งและการเซ็นเซอร์ในภาพยนตร์ไทย), a panel discussion held last week, proposed an intriguing strategy to boost Thailand’s soft power: make more controversial movies.

Director Martin Barshai, who introduced the event, argued that Thailand should emulate Korean cinema, which “shocks and entertains and says something political or socially outrageous.” The central motion of the debate, proposed by moderator Stefan Rustler, was: “in order for the film industry to mature and advance, more controversy needs to be realised.” (Director Nontawat Numbenchapol made a similar point in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored: “I’d love to do a controversial issue. But it would be hard to stay in Thailand if I do something controversial in the future, super-controversial.”)

One of the panellists at Tearing Down the Wall, director Anucha Boonyawatana, argued that legislative changes were needed to give directors the opportunity to make more provocative films. She advocated replacing state censorship with self-regulation—“change the [Film and Video] Act from control to support the Thai entertainment industry”—which the Free Thai Cinema Movement had called for in 2007. (Free Thai Cinema campaigned successfully for the introduction of the Film and Video Act, though this was a Pyrrhic victory, as the Act was drafted by the conservative Ministry of Culture, described by panellist Pasakorn Vanasirikul as “the bottom-barrel ministry”.)

Another panellist, Naruemon Chaingam, who has made several courageous investigative documentaries, highlighted the problem of criminal defamation that “prevents filmmakers, journalists, even artists from be[ing] authentic or telling the truth” and results in widespread self-censorship. In fact, the prevalence of self-censorship was demonstrated by Pasakorn, who couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘article 112’—“I’m not gonna tell you what numbers that is”—that refer to the lèse-majesté (royal defamation) law.

Tearing Down the Wall took place on 2nd February on the rooftop of the Smalls bar in Bangkok. Controversial films may well draw an audience’s attention, as the debate motion suggested, though they also attract unwanted attention from the censors. In Thailand, that’s a rather high-risk strategy, though the panel ultimately concluded that it’s a risk worth taking.

Peaceful Art Protest

Russian police have seized nineteen posters from an art exhibition in St Petersburg. The anti-war artworks, by Yelena Osipova, were painted in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and her Peaceful Art Protest («МИРный арт-протест») exhibition opened on 31st January. The show had been scheduled to run until 24th February, though on the day after the opening, police closed the exhibition and confiscated all of the posters on display. Criticising the invasion of Ukraine is illegal in Russia: local newspapers that did so were banned last year.

The exhibition was held at the St Petersburg office of the opposition Yabloko party. (Their name is the Russian word for ‘apple’, though it might remind non-Russians of the Nadsat word ‘yarblockos’ from the novel and film A Clockwork Orange.) This was not the first time that police have raided art exhibitions in Russia: galleries were charged with blasphemy in 2006 and 2012, and an exhibition of satirical portraits was closed down in 2013. Paintings mocking President Vladimir Putin were censored in 2009 and 2010.

Tongpan

Next week, on 7th February, there will be a screening of the classic independent film Tongpan (ทองปาน) at Noir Row Art Space in Udon Thani. (Tongpan has previously been shown at Cinema Oasis in 2018, at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in 2017, and at the Thai Film Archive in 2016.)

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. In the film, Sulak Sivaraksa makes an impassioned speech against the proposed dam: “Development only serves a few people in Bangkok... And what about the destruction of our country? The whole province of Loei will be flooded by this Pa Mong 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 collapse of Thanom Kittikachorn’s dictatorship in 1973, though by the time filming had been completed in 1977, the military had seized power again, and the film was banned. Its prologue captures the optimism of 1973 (“A military junta fled into exile, and the students from the city went into the countryside to tell the farmers”), 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”).