The Truth Be Told heading to Hot Docs

Fresh from its screening on Monday at the Singapore International Film Festival, The Truth Be Told: The Cases Against Supinya Klangnarong will next be going to Toronto, where it will screen twice at Hot Docs, which is possibly the biggest documentary film festival in the world.

Here is the official synopsis:

In October 2005, Thailand telecommunications giant Shin Corporation, owned by the family of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, brings an $11-million defamation lawsuit against Supinya Klangnarong, a prominent Thai journalist, university lecturer and media rights activist. She had accused the corporation of colluding with the government. During the tumultuous months of her trial, director Pimpaka Towira, a leading figure of Thailand's independent film scene, accompanies the level-headed Klangnarong, capturing a portrait of idealism and integrity. The result is a beguiling mix of cinema vérité, personal profile, political exposé and national diary. Proving that freedom of speech and public activism can effect change, The Truth Be Told seamlessly combines a fluid experimental style with an engaging narrative structure that comments on the legal, political and constitutional turmoil in contemporary Thai society.

While I have yet to see much reaction to the film in Singapore, I think it had a lot of resonance, if only because it captures the anti-Thaksin demonstrations that erupted as a backlash to his family selling their stock in Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean government's investment arm -- in effect handing over a major Thai telecoms and satellite technology firm to a foreign country.

The Truth Be Told is also getting a screening in Malaysia.

(Via ThaiCinema.org)