Priyanandana Rangsit v. Nattapoll Chaiching

The Civil Court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed in 2021 by the aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit against the historian Nattapoll Chaiching and his publisher, Same Sky Books. Nattapoll is the author of the bestselling ขุนศึก ศักดินา และพญาอินทรี (‘feudal warlords and the eagle’). His earlier book ขอฝันใฝ่ในฝันอันเหลือเชื่อ (‘I dream an incredible dream’) also saw a revival in sales after it was among five titles seized by police from the offices of Same Sky.

On 5th March 2021, aristocrat Priyanandana Rangsit sued Nattapoll and Same Sky for defamation, seeking ฿50 million in damages. According to the lawsuit, Nattapoll’s books incorrectly assert that her grandfather, Prince Rangsit Prayurasakdi, sought an improper political influence over Phibun Songkhram’s government in the 1940s. She argued that this allegation about her long-dead ancestor tarnished her family name, and was thus defamatory to her personally.

Yesterday, the court came to the obvious conclusion that Prince Rangsit, having died in 1951, was not affected by the content of Nattapoll’s books. In the court’s judgement, Priyanandana’s legal case was therefore invalid from the beginning. This ruling is hardly surprising, though more questionable is the fact that it took almost four years for such a spurious case to be dismissed.

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy

Vichart Somkaew’s new documentary Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy (ไตรภาคการเมืองร่วมสมัยไทย) is an hour-long portmanteau project combining three of his recent short films: Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป), 112 News from Heaven, and The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ). The anthology’s structure, divided into three segments, reflects what the director sees as the three eras of modern Thai politics: 1932–1957 (the abolition of absolute monarchy and the establishment of democratic institutions), 1957–1992 (prolonged military dictatorship, culminating in the ‘Black May’ crackdown), and 1992 to the present day (liberal reforms, followed by political polarisation).

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy begins with Vichart’s most directly political film, Cremation Ceremony, in which the faces of three politicians stare impassively at the viewer. The three men—Anutin Charnvirakul, former health minister; Abhisit Vejjajiva, former prime minister; and former army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha—are responsible for three tragic injustices. Anutin oversaw the Thai government’s initially sluggish response to the coronavirus pandemic. Abhisit authorised the shooting of red-shirt protesters in 2010. Prayut led the 2014 coup, and his military government revived lèse-majesté prosecutions.

Vichart sets fire to photographs of the three men, their faces distorting as the photographic paper burns. There is no sound except the crackling of the flame. This symbolic ritual is a reminder of the deaths of Covid victims, red-shirt protesters, and political dissidents, though it’s also a metaphorical act of retribution, as the three politicians have faced no consequences for their actions. (Anutin is a billionaire, Abhisit was cleared of all charges, and Prayut acted with total impunity.)

While the three portraits burn slowly, captions mourn the forgotten victims: red-shirts shot while sheltering in Wat Pathum Wanaram, political prisoners charged under article 112, and victims of the coronavirus. (Cremation Ceremony originally ended on a hopeful note with a final caption explaining that pro-democracy parties had “emerged victorious” in last year’s election. But after the film’s release, the progressive Move Forward Party was excluded from the governing coalition, and the optimistic caption has now been removed.)

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy continues with 112 News from Heaven, which juxtaposes news that’s broadcast on all channels every day with news that goes unreported by mainstream outlets. On the soundtrack, an announcer reads a bulletin of royal news, a daily staple of Thai television and radio. This is contrasted with captions documenting news of “victims of the Thai state”.

The Thai monarchy is often associated with the sky, symbolising the high reverence in which it is traditionally held, and lèse-majesté is article 112 of the criminal code, hence the title 112 News from Heaven. The film’s captions feature 112 headlines from a 112-day period, detailing the custodial sentences given to those convicted of lèse-majesté and the bail denied to those awaiting trial.

After its litany of legal persecution, 112 News from Heaven ends with a clip from an impromptu TV interview Rama X gave during a walkabout. Asked for his message to pro-democracy protesters, the King offers words of reassurance: “We love them all the same.” Viewers are left to interpret this in the context of the film they have just seen.

Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy’s final segment is The Letter from Silence, a series of extracts from letters by lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner Arnon Nampa to his family, written while he serves a prison sentence for lèse-majesté. Arnon’s letters are often heartbreaking, as he faces the prospect of many years in jail if convicted on further charges, separated from his wife and their two young children.

In fact, Arnon is one of the common threads linking each Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy episode. Cremation Ceremony summarises his 3rd August 2020 speech calling for reform of the monarchy, 112 News from Heaven documents the legal process following his arrest, and The Letter from Silence quotes from his prison letters.

The Letter from Silence

Vichart Somkaew’s latest short film The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) features extracts from letters by lawyer and pro-democracy campaigner Arnon Nampa to his family, written while he serves a prison sentence for lèse-majesté. Arnon’s letters are often heartbreaking, as he faces the prospect of many years in jail if convicted on further charges, separated from his wife and their two young children.

The film is silent, except for ambient sounds recorded at night in a quiet neighbourhood. It avoids the explanatory captions of Vichart’s previous films 112 News from Heaven and Cremation Ceremony (ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่หายไป), instead letting Arnon’s words stand alone. This makes the film all the more powerful, and emphasises the hopelessness of Arnon’s situation.

The Letter from Silence’s focus on Arnon’s letters themselves has echoes of another short film with a similar title, Prap Boonpan’s Letter from the Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ). Prap’s film documented the suicide note left by Nuamthong Praiwan, who had protested against the 2006 coup by crashing his taxi into a tank.

The Letter from Silence, which is dedicated to Arnon and other political prisoners, was shown as part of this year’s online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน) on 5th November. Vichart has announced plans to combine it with 112 News from Heaven and Cremation Ceremony into an hour-long portmanteau film, Contemporary Thai Political Trilogy. Arnon’s letters have been translated into English by the Article 112 Project website.

Arnon led a protest at Democracy Monument on 3rd August 2020, one of the first rallies calling for reform of the monarchy. The speech he delivered at that event was published as The Monarchy and Thai Society (สถาบันพระมหากษัตริย์กับสังคมไทย). He has also written a book of poetry, เหมือนบอดใบ้ไพร่ฟ้ามาสุดทาง (‘we subjects, as if mute and blind, have found ourselves at the end of the line’).

2475Dawn of Revolution

When the animation 2475 Dawn of Revolution (๒๔๗๕ รุ่งอรุณแห่งการปฏิวัติ) was released earlier this year, Prachatai reported that the film’s production company, Nakraphiwat, was paid almost ฿4 million by the army for other projects between 2020 and 2022. Yesterday, Prachatai revealed that it had received a defamation lawsuit from Nakraphiwat, alleging that Prachatai’s online article falsely implied that 2475 had been funded by the military.

The film’s credits include a long list of individual donors, some of whom gave as little as ฿100 each, though the bulk of the budget was provided anonymously. 2475 (directed by Wivat Jirotgul) tells the story of the 1932 coup from a royalist-nationalist perspective, though its makers are clearly sensitive to the suggestion that the film is an example of military propaganda.

The lawsuit was filed on 11th October, and there will be a preliminary hearing at the Criminal Court in Bangkok on 9th December. Prachatai’s report—headlined “พบเจ้าของแอนิเมชัน ‘2475 Dawn of Revolution’ รับโครงการทำสื่อแบบวิธีเฉพาะเจาะจง ‘กองทัพบก’ 11 สัญญา” (‘the maker of 2475 Dawn of Revolution took on 11 media contracts from the army’)—which was published on 15th March, is still online.

Bangkok Art Biennale 2024

After Beyond Bliss (สุขสะพรั่ง พลังอาร์ต) in 2018, Escape Routes (ศิลป์สร้าง ทางสุข) in 2020, and Chaos:Calm (โกลาหล:สงบสุข) in 2022, the fourth Bangkok Art Biennale’s theme is Nurture Gaia (รักษา กายา). As in previous years, the Biennale (บางกอก อาร์ต เบียนนาเล่) is being held at multiple venues around the city, from galleries to temples. The event opened on 24th October, and runs until 25th February next year.

Taiki Sakpisit’s video installation Dream Sequence (ฝันทิพย์), showing at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, consists of static shots filmed at the house in Paris where Pridi Banomyong lived during his years in exile from Thailand until his death in 1983. The house was purchased this year by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, founder of the Future Forward party, cementing the property as a symbol of progressive politics thwarted by the establishment, and the Biennale catalogue describes Tiaki’s video as “a kaleidoscopic feast of delusion, desperation, oppression, and perpetual nightmares rooted in Thailand’s flawed democracy.”

War

Bob Woodward’s most recent books on presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden all have one-word titles: Fear, Rage, Peril, and now War. Woodward covered the first few months of the Biden administration in Peril, and War—released earlier this month—is his account of Biden’s responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Isreal’s war with Gaza. (He previously wrote a similar book on Barack Obama’s foreign policy, Obama’s Wars.)

Woodward’s reporting is always extraordinary—his and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal ultimately led to Richard Nixon’s resignation—but War is a remarkable book. Almost every chapter features direct quotes from secure telephone calls and private meetings between Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and others.

The US intelligence services were aware of Putin’s plan to attack Ukraine, and tried several times to convince Zelensky that it would happen. Woodward reports that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a skeptical Zelensky: “we believe there is a very high risk that the Russians will re-invade your country.” Zelensky was equally dismissive when CIA director Bill Burns reiterated: “There is going to be a significant invasion of your country”. Even a week before the war began, Zelensky remained unconvinced when Vice President Kamala Harris warned him: “You face a potentially imminent invasion.”

After the 7th October 2023 attack on Isreal by Hamas, Woodward shows how Biden and his most senior diplomats were focused on seeking assurances from Netanyahu that his retaliation would be proportionate. Netanyahu insisted that “not an ounce of anything will go into Gaza to help people,” though Blinken and Biden convinced him to reconsider. As the war dragged on, Biden sought to minimise any potential escalations, and Woodward quotes at length from a wide-ranging 4th April call between Biden and Netanyahu debating an invasion of Rafah, humanitarian aid, and the hostage crisis.

Biden’s private opinion of Netanyahu is clear from War. Woodward reports that Biden called the Israeli PM “a fucking liar,” and added for good measure: “That son of a bitch Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy. He’s a bad fucking guy!” But it was the book’s reporting about former president Donald Trump that made more headlines: Woodward quotes Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s presidency, describing Trump as “a total fascist”. (Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly agreed with Milley in a recent New York Times interview.)

Woodward’s own assessment of Trump (who is suing him after the release of The Trump Tapes) is also unequivocal. He ended Rage by describing Trump as “the wrong man for the job” though he goes much further in War: “Donald Trump is not only the wrong man for the presidency, he is unfit to lead the country. Trump was far worse than Richard Nixon, the provably criminal president... Trump was the most reckless and impulsive president in American history and is demonstrating the very same character as a presidential candidate in 2024.”

Chris Whipple (The Fight of His Life) and Franklin Foer (The Last Politician) have also written books on the Biden White House. Simon Shuster’s The Showman is an account of Zelensky’s presidency and the war in Ukraine.

Lazada

Today the Criminal Court in Bangkok dismissed lèse-majesté charges in relation to online videos promoting the shopping website Lazada and Nara skincare. Lazada had posted a video on 5th May 2022 featuring Thidaporn Chaokhuvieng in a wheelchair, which led to allegations that it was mocking Princess Chulabhorn and disabled people in general. Another TikTok video showed Thidaporn alongside Kittikoon Thammakitirad, who was dressed similarly to Queen Sirikit.

The video campaign was surprisingly audacious for a mainstream, market-leading company like Lazada, as lèse-majesté is rigorously enforced and the references to Chulabhorn and Sirikit were unambiguous. Two days later, Srisuwan Janya (dubbed “Thailand’s complainer-in-chief” and mocked by comedian Udom Taephanich) filed lèse-majesté charges against Thidaporn and Kittikoon, amongst others, and they were arrested on 16th June 2022.

The Criminal Court’s decision today was as surprising as the initial Lazada campaign. Previously, lèse-majesté has been broadly interpreted, though today’s judgement followed the precise letter of the law (article 112 of the criminal code). Article 112 specifies that only defamation or insults directed at the King, Queen, heir to the throne, or regent are illegal, and the court today made clear that it would only prosecute lèse-majesté cases related to those named individuals.

Therefore, as Chulabhorn is not the heir to the throne, the case against Thidaporn was dismissed, perhaps setting a precedent that criticism of some royals is not a crime. The court also ruled that the imitation of Queen Sirikit was not disrespectful, and therefore dismissed the charges against Kittikoon. Again, this was unexpected, as it seems to permit the impersonation of a senior royal, even for commercial purposes.

ปฏิทินพระราชทาน(‘royal calendar’)

The Appeals Court yesterday upheld a two-year jail sentence for a man charged with 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 charge 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 offence.) The man was arrested on New Year’s Eve 2020, and sentenced on 7th March 2023, though he was granted bail pending an appeal. He did not attend court yesterday, and was sentenced in absentia.

This is the third 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.

Amazing Stoner Movie Fest 4

The fourth Amazing Stoner Movie Fest (มหัศจรรย์หนังผี ครั้งที่ 4) will take place at Cinema Oasis in Bangkok from 7th to 10th November, with simultaneous screenings both inside and outside the cinema. The festival’s Holy War Zone strand, part of its Shorts Programme (โปรแกรมหนังสั้น), includes two Thai films that feature archive footage of political unrest: Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole and Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love. Both films are also included in this year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Crazy Soft Power Love is a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, culminating in a Songkran water fight that escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre. It was previously shown at Wildtype 2024.

Black Hole is a surreal black-and-white film in which a young son discovers that his father, a corrupt military officer, has sold citizens’ digital data for personal gain. The film links this family conflict with anti-military demonstrations in modern Thai history, with footage from 14th October 1973, 6th October 1976, and the student protests that began in 2020. It was also screened in the Tech Tales Youth programme at the 27th Thai Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 27).

If the Air Has Memories

Walai Buppha’s new documentary If the Air Has Memories (หากอากาศมีความทรงจำ) will be screened today at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition commemorating the Tak Bai incident, when seventy-eight protesters suffocated to death on 25th October 2004 while being transported to a military camp. Today is the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy.

After many years, seven former police and military officers were eventually charged with the murder of the Tak Bai protesters. However, no attempt has been made to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them, and at midnight tonight, the twenty-year statute of limitations will expire, meaning that they cannot be prosecuted.

Walai’s one-hour documentary is the first film to give a voice to the families of the Tak Bai victims. One relative, for example, says that “we kept quiet, memory never goes away. We’d just get used to it.” He also asks why the protesters were “loaded on the truck and stacked up” like animals.

The film is not yet complete, and is screening today under its working title. It was first shown on 20th October at Hope Space in Bangkok, under its eventual subtitle, 20 Years Later, as part of the 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’) exhibition.

Its final release title, Along the Road, refers both to the route along which the victims were transported twenty years ago, and the ongoing journey of the relatives in coming to terms with what happened. This title is also a reference to the long-running legal campaign for justice and accountability, which is still, two decades later, a journey without an ending.

Short Film Marathon 28

The 28th Short Film and Video Festival (เทศกาลภาพยนตร์สั้นครั้งที่ 28) will take place in December at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya. As a prelude, all of the films submitted will be screened in alphabetical order in this year’s online Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน), between 29th October and 4th December.

There were more than 600 submissions this year. A few of the highlights include Vichart Somkaew’s documentary 112 News from Heaven on 29th October (previously screened at Phatthalung Micro Cinema 0.5, the Doc Club Festival, and Vichart Movie Collection), Patipat Oakkharhaphunrat’s Black Hole on 31st October (previously shown at Tech Tales Youth), Pattanapong Khongsak’s Bad Taste (โอรส) also on 31st October, Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love on 1st November (previously screened at this year’s Wildtype), Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s Comedy Against Dictatorship also on 1st November, Vichart’s The Letter from Silence (จดหมายจากความเงียบ) on 5th November, Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film on 7th November (also previously screened at Wildtype), Vichart’s The Poem of the River (บทกวีแห่งสายน้ำ) on 8th November, and Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear (another Wildtype film) on 12th November.

Comedy Against Dictatorship features an interview with comedian Setthawut Chanpensuk, who was inspired by Rap Against Dictatorship to start a satirical stand-up comedy routine. (In one of his live sets, he takes a swig of an energy drink: “Let me have a sip of Red Bull. Ahhh, the taste of inequality.”) Bad Taste, tinted blue and set to the song Blue by Eiffel 65, features a judge who eats blue food from a dogfood bowl on the floor. The colour blue has a symbolic meaning in Thai politics, and the film implies the judge’s dog-like obedience.

Tak Bai Can’t Breathe

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. Walai Buppha’s documentary 20 Years Later features interviews with the families of the victims. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Yesterday evening, performance artist Jakkrapan Sriwichai lay in seventy-eight different positions, his hands bound behind his back, at Tha Pae Gate in Chiang Mai (photographed by Prachatai). His performance, Tak Bai Can’t Breathe (ตากใบหายใจไม่ออก), memorialised the seventy-eight protesters who died of suffocation, and highlighted the urgent need to enforce the arrest warrants of the men accused of their murder.

Other events commemorating the twentieth anniversary include 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’), #ตากใบต้องไม่เงียบ (‘Tak Bai must not be silenced’), Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน), Takbai 20th Year Memorization (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ), and Sol Bar Talk Special (คืนนี้ ไม่มีความยุติธรรม ให้ตากใบ). Previous exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ), รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), and Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

20 Years Later

“Memory never goes away.”

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in Teerawat Rujenatham’s short film Tak Bai, and in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Walai Buppha’s one-hour documentary 20 Years Later was originally scheduled to premiere on 19th October at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition, but Teerawat’s short film was shown instead. 20 Years Later therefore had its first screening on 20th October at Hope Space in Bangkok, to an audience of around a dozen people, as part of the 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’) exhibition.

Just as Teerawat’s film is the first to dramatise the events of Tak Bai, Walai’s is the first documentary to give a voice to the families of the victims. One relative, for example, says that “we kept quiet, memory never goes away. We’d just get used to it.” He also asks why the protesters were “loaded on the truck and stacked up” like animals.

The film is not yet complete—the version shown at Hope Space had no opening titles or end credits—and 20 Years Later will ultimately be its subtitle. Its final release title, Along the Road, refers both to the route along which the victims were transported twenty years ago, and the ongoing journey of the relatives in coming to terms with what happened. This title is also a reference to the long-running legal campaign for justice and accountability, which is still, two decades later, a journey without an ending. The film will also be shown on 4th November at TK Park in Narathiwat, under its working title, If the Air Has Memories (หากอากาศมีความทรงจำ).

A five-minute extract from 20 Years Later will be screened today at the Takbai 20th Year Memorization (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ) event, hosted by the embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok. Previous exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ), รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), and Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

Central Park Five

Donald Trump is being sued for libel by the men known as the Central Park Five, whose convictions for rape and attempted murder were overturned in 2002. Their joint defamation lawsuit, filed yesterday, seeks at least $75,000 in damages.

The five men, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown, and Korey Wise, were accused of attacking Trisha Meili in New York’s Central Park on 19th April 1989. They made videotaped confessions, though they later pleaded not guilty. Their confessions were later deemed to have been coerced by the NYPD.

Speaking during a debate with fellow presidential candidate Kamala Harris on 10th September, in a live broadcast on ABC News, Trump incorrectly stated that the five men “pled guilty.” He also falsely claimed that they “killed a person ultimately”.

Trump was successfully sued for libel last year by E. Jean Carroll. However, Trump’s own libel suits—filed against Bill Maher, Timothy L. O’Brien, Michael Wolff, Bob Woodward, The New York Times, ABC, and CNN—have all been unsuccessful.

Cartooning the ASEAN Way of Non-Interference and Consensus

An exhibition of cartoons and comics, Cartooning the ASEAN Way of Non-Interference and Consensus (การ์ตูนภาพ วิถีอาเซียน หลักการการไม่แทรกแซงกิจการภายใน และหลักฉันทามติของประชาคมอาเซียน), opens today at SAE Junction in Bangkok and runs until 3rd November. The exhibition (and its spiral-bound catalogue) features Pornnipa Baoniaw’s comic Everything in the World Is Beautiful (ทุกอย่างในโลกล้วนสวยงาม), in which she compares countries in Southeast Asia to delicate flowers that need nurturing, though her story ends with a montage of fuzzy, black-and-white photographs showing military dominance in the region. The image representing Thailand is a photo of a tank on the streets of Bangkok when the 2006 coup took place.

Tak Bai

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that took place at Tak Bai on 25th October 2004. More than 1,000 people protested outside Tak Bai’s Provincial Police Station, and police responded with water cannon, tear gas, and ultimately live ammunition, killing seven people. The surviving demonstrators were crammed into trucks and taken to Ingkhayuttha Borihan Fort military camp, though seventy-eight died of suffocation during the five-hour journey.

For almost two decades, successive governments have failed to bring the security forces to justice for the unlawful deaths at Tak Bai. Finally, earlier this year, just months before the twenty-year statute of limitations expires, seven former police and military officers were charged with the murder of the Tak Bai victims. However, there has been no attempt to enforce the arrest warrants issued for them. The court has announced that it will simply wait until midnight on 25th October for the seven men to present themselves voluntarily and, if they choose not to hand themselves in, the cases against them will be dropped.

The injustice of Tak Bai is heartbreaking, though sadly not unusual in Thailand. At the time of the Tak Bai incident, the government even prohibited footage of the event from being broadcast on television, though the journal Same Sky (ฟ้าเดียวกัน) distributed a Tak Bai VCD, ความจริงที่ตากใบ (‘the truth at Tak Bai’), in defiance of the ban. Tak Bai footage also appears in two documentaries: This Area Is Under Quarantine (บริเวณนี้อยู่ภายใต้การกักกัน) by Thunska Pansittivorakul, and 18 Years by Prempapat Plittapolkranpim. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the representation of Tak Bai by Thai filmmakers.)

Teerawat Rujenatham’s powerful short film Tak Bai also includes Tak Bai footage, which is played during the end credits, and the final images are shots of the shrouded bodies of the victims. But what makes Teerawat’s film unique is that, for the first time, he dramatises the brutal events of that day. Actors playing Tak Bai protesters are shown being stacked on top of each other in the back of a truck, and we see one man in closeup as he struggles to breathe, emphasising the suffocating claustrophobia endured by all those held captive.

Teerawat’s film was shown on 19th October at TK Park in Narathiwat, as part of the Indelible Memory (ลบไม่เลือน) exhibition. According to one of the organisers of the event, the Tak Bai victims’ relatives in the audience found Teerawat’s film hard to watch. It was screened unexpectedly, instead of the advertised film, Walai Buppha’s documentary 20 Years Later. Tak Bai will be shown today at the Sukosol Hotel in Bangkok as part of the one-day #ตากใบต้องไม่เงียบ (‘Tak Bai must not be silenced’) event. It will also be shown at the embassy of the Netherlands in Bangkok tomorrow at the Takbai 20th Year Memorization: Fighting Against Impunity and Upholding the Rule of Law (จดจำ 20 ปี ตากใบ การต่อสู้กับการลอยนวลพ้นผิดและการธำรงไว้ซึ่งหลักนิติธรรม) event, at the Sol Bar Talk Special: Movie Night (คืนนี้ ไม่มีความยุติธรรม ให้ตากใบ) in Bangkok on 25th October, and at Patani Artspace on 25th October at the Genab 20 Tahun Peristiwa Tak Bai (‘20 years since Tak Bai’) event.

Tak Bai was previously screened at the Heard the Unheard (สดับเสียงเงียบ) exhibition last year. Other exhibitions commemorating Tak Bai include รำลึก 19 ปี ตากใบ (‘remembering 19 years of Tak Bai’), Deep South (ลึกลงไป ใต้ชายแดน), Living Memories (ความทรงจำที่ยังเหลืออยู่), Landscape of Unity the Indivisible (ทิวทัศน์แห่งความเป็นหนึ่งอันมิอาจแบ่งแยก), and 20 ปีตากใบ เราไม่ลืม (‘20 years of Tak Bai, we will never forget’).

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Photophobia series incorporates photographs of the incident, as does the interactive installation Black Air by Pimpaka Towira, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu, and Jakrawal Nilthamrong. Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh’s Violence in Tak Bai (ความรุนแรงที่ตากใบ) installation features white tombstones marking the graves of each victim. The victims’ names are listed in Teerawat’s film, and in two installations: Jakkhai Siributr’s 78 and Zakariya Amataya’s Report from a Partitioned Village (รายงานจากหมู่บ้านที่ถูกปิดล้อม).

Resistant with Style

Resistant with Style [sic], an exhibition of t-shirts with political slogans from the Museum of Popular History’s collection, opens today at The Fort in Bangkok and runs until 23rd October. A similar collection of t-shirts was included in the Never Again exhibition in 2019.

6th October Filmography

This week marks the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 Thammasat University massacre. The tragic event has been referenced in more than fifty films and videos, which are all listed in this filmography. Many of these titles are discussed in Thai Cinema Uncensored, which features a comprehensive survey of Thai political cinema.

งานรำลึก 48 ปี เหตุการณ์ 6 ตุลาฯ 2519(‘commemorating the 48th anniversary of 6th Oct. 1976’)

This week, Thammasat University will commemorate the 48th anniversary of the 6th October 1976 massacre. A pop-up exhibition, ต่างความคิดผิดถึงตาย (‘deadly misconceptions’), will be held at Thammasat’s Sri Burapha Auditorium from tomorrow until 6th October. (A documentary with the same title was released on DVD in 2011.) At the same time, Thammasat’s Pridi Banomyong Library will host 6 ตุลาฯ กระจกส่องสังคมไทย (‘6th Oct., mirror of Thai society’), an exhibition exploring the wider context of the event. (These exhibitions were scheduled to open today, but as of this afternoon the library display was cordened off and the auditorium was closed.)

Three short documentaries will be screened at Thammasat on 5th October. Respectfully Yours (ดวยความนบถอ), directed by Patporn Phoothong and Puangthong Pawakapan, features interviews with families of massacre victims. For The Two Brothers (สองพนอง), Patporn and Teerawat Rujenatham interviewed relatives of the two young men were hanged by police for campaigning against the return of Thanom Kittikachorn from exile. In Manussak Dokmai’s Don’t Forget Me (อย่าลืมฉัน), archive footage of 6th October is accompanied by narration from a documentary on the Mlabri tribe, providing an ironic counterpoint to the violent imagery.

There will also be an exhibition by the Museum of Popular History at Thammasat on 6th October, ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’). Elsewhere in Bangkok, another 6th October photography exhibition, ไม่ใช่ 6 ตุลาฟื้นคืนชีพ แต่รากเหง้าของ ปัญญาชนนั้นยังอยู่ (‘not a 6th Oct. resurrection, but intellectual roots remain’), will open at Hope Space tomorrow. The Two Brothers will be screened there on the opening day.

Wildtype 2024

Wildtype, the annual season of short films programmed by Chayanin Tiangpitayagorn, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, and Sasawat Boonsri, returns this week. After being held largely online due to the coronvirus pandemic in 2021, and taking place in a few provinces in 2022, the event expanded significantly in 2023, with screenings at ten venues around the country. This year, fifty-nine films are being shown in Bangkok and at microcinemas throughout Thailand.

Highlights this year include Koraphat Cheeradit’s ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! (ฉันแต่งงานกับปัจจุบัน ช่วยตัวเองด้วยเมื่อวาน และมีเพศสัมพันธ์กับวันพรุ่งนี้), Kawinnate Konklong’s Unfortunately (แค่วันที่โชคร้าย), and Piyanat Lamor’s Come from Away (กลับบ้าน). ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! is showing in the Exper programme of experimental films at Doc Club and Pub in Bangkok on 5th October. Unfortunately and Come from Away are both included in the U-Dawn Genesis programme, screening at the same venue on 6th October. The Exper programme will also be shown at Loftster in Korat on 22nd October, at Alien Artspace in Khon Kaen on 25th October, at Chiang Mai University on 26th October, and at Noir Row Art Space in Udon Thani on 27th October. The U-Dawn Genesis programme will be shown at Loftster on 23rd October, at Noir Row Art Space on 26th November, at Alien Artspace on 27th October, and at CMU On 29th October.

...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! begins with a young man stumbling around in a woodland. The aimless protagonist is filmed in a continuous take, with double-exposures constantly fading in and out. Birdsong and other bucolic, ambient sounds soon give way to a non-diegetic locomotive on the soundtrack, which gradually rises to a crescendo. Visually, this is matched by bursts of rapid-fire shots, each lasting for only a single frame, that are perceived only subliminally. Some of these inserts are faux-naïf: white doves and heart emojis, symbolising peace and love. Other flash frames are more extreme: Koraphat juxtaposes sex and violence in split-second montages of anatomical drawings, erections, Ukrainian war casualties in Bucha, Nazi troops, and riot police firing water cannon at Thai protesters.

Unfortunately dramatises the ideological gap between generations, as a royalist father files a lèse-majesté charge against his daughter’s girlfriend, Bam, after she attends a protest calling for reform of the monarchy. The man tells his daughter: “I used the law to protect the King from defamation. Unfortunately, the person was Bam.” His dialogue evokes a comment from former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who dismissed dozens of civilian casualties in a BBC interview: “unfortunately, some people died”. Unfortunately and ...Tomorrow I Fuck with Yesterday Now! were both shown in last year’s Short Film Marathon (หนังสั้นมาราธอน).

Come from Away features a montage of found footage, including clips from TV news broadcasts of Thaksin Shinawatra and Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse returning to Thailand after both had spent many years abroad. Former prime minister Thaksin returned from self-imposed exile last year, and has continued his divisive and influential role in Thai politics. Teeraphan Ngowjeenanan’s short film แฟ้มรวมภาพทักษิณกลับไทย (‘dossier of pictures of Thaksin’s return to Thailand’) also featured TV news coverage of Thaksin’s arrival. Vacharaesorn is one of the sons of King Rama X, and his return this year has prompted speculation about the royal succession. Come from Away juxtaposes the privileged, state-sanctioned returns of Thaksin and Vacharaesorn with the fates of political refugees such as Wat Wanlayangkoon who fled the country after facing lèse-majesté charges and cannot return.

The U-Dawn Genesis programme also features four short dramas that include very brief footage of political violence and protest. Buariyate Eamkamol’s Isekai (อิเซไก), a science-fiction tale of a young couple breaking up, shows victims of the 2010 military crackdown lying in the road. Jarut Wisawong’s Twas Partly Love, and Partly Fear, about the family of a Thai lawyer who was forcibly disappeared, opens with a solarised clip of Bangkok riot police firing water cannon at student protesters in Siam Square on 16th October 2020. In Warat Bureephakdee’s Crazy Soft Power Love, a satire on the government’s soft power strategy, a Songkran water fight escalates into a brawl, intercut with footage from the 6th October 1976 massacre. In Komtouch Napattaloong’s No Exorcism Film, a robotic voiceover narrates a dream in which a brutal warlord kills villagers with a sword because they ‘disrespect’ him by not addressing him as their king, and the film includes a short silent video clip of Panusaya Sithijirawattanakul in 2020 reading a manifesto calling for reform of the monarchy.