Boundary sets Thai release, in Yamagata competition

Boundary, the controversial documentary on the Thai-Cambodian border dispute and Thailand's red-and-yellow political divide, will tour the Kingdom this month and next.

Along with getting a snazzy new poster, Nontawat Numbenchapol's film has also been picked up for the competition at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in October.

In Thailand, Boundary's tour starts on June 27 at the Major Cineplex Airport Plaza in Chiang Mai, where it runs until July 3. It'll then move to the EGV Tesco Lotus in Khon Kaen from July 4 to 10, Major Cineplex Udon Thani from July 11 to 17 and then finish up at the Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada in Bangkok from July 18 onwards.

Boundary premiered earlier this year at the Berlin International Film Festival and then screened in Thailand as part of the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival. Nontawat then submitted it to be rated for a commercial release. The ratings sub-committee initially deemed it too politically sensitive and banned it, but then two days later the bureaucrats admitted they'd made a mistake – a historic moment in Thai government – and allowed Boundary to be released with only a bit of censorship.

But even though Boundary was not banned after all, the incident spurred other filmmakers into action and breathed new life into the Free Thai Cinema Movement, headed up by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Al-Jazeera covers all that in a recent news segment (embedded below).