Looking back and looking forward to Siam and a Century

Six indie filmmakers express their feelings about Thai culture and society in Siam and a Century, premiering on Saturday night at 6 as part of the 13th Thai Short Film and Video Festival.

Letting it all out are Anocha Suwichakornpong, Sanchai Chotirosseranee, Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, Prap Boonpan, Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn and Nok Paksnawin.

The project is inspired by the Spoken Silence program at the 11th Thai Short Film & Video Festival in 2007, in which indie filmmakers offered their mostly silent reflections on post-coup, post-Thaksin Thailand. Several of those films, such as Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's Bangkok Tanks have gone on to be packaged in other festivals.

Here's the project statement for Siam and a Century from the festival catalog:

Recently, there are lots of thing encouraging us to think about ourselves, our generation, our society, our country and our world. In the same time, there are something suppressing our thought and imagination.

We love to think about our past, either painfully or beautifully. But we rarely think of future. It might because that past is what we have experienced (and, moreover, we have power to reconstruct and reinterpret it by own hand). But future means uncertainness. It might be just dream that can be evaporated in a flash as well as be condensed to thing we experience.

This is the origin of the special project Siam and a Century our feeling toward future. It gathers filmmakers who want to invite everybody to think of future via their works. The title of the project does not mean that these works must be about 100 years after this. We want word that inspires imagination toward thing that cannot be described in words.

Back to 2006, the Thai Film Foundation asked short filmmakers to join the Spoken Silence project, in order to make “silent” films to express their feeling in “silent” period. Siam and a Century owes Spoken Silence a debt, in particular its inspiration. Somewhat, it is unofficially Spoken Silence’s sequel. Therefore, here we want to express our gratitude to the Thai Film Foundation to create the past project.

What is about the third, fourth or fifth sequel? Who knows? It is about future, right?

And here are the projects and the "feelings expressers" in the 99-minute program:

• Old Heart, 8 min., by Anocha Suwichakornpong
• คือผู้หญิง (…is woman), 7 min., by Sanchai Chotirosseranee
• Encantos, 8 min., by Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa
• บทกวีของบางเรา (Resistant Poem), 20 min., by Prap Boonpan
• ธัญญาเรศ (Tunyares), 15 min., by Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn
• ประวัติย่อของบางสิ่งที่ยังไม่จบสิ้น (Pulsatile Mass), 40 min., by Nok Paksnawin

The 13th Thai Short Film and Video Festival runs until Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, with shows starting at 5pm on weekdays and 11am on Saturday and Sunday. The full schedule is at Bangkok Cinema Scene.

(Via Facebook and Bioscope Magazine forum; top photo courtesy of Electric Eel Films)