Relaunched Silpathorn Awards honor Kongdej

Award-winning writer-director Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (คงเดช จาตุรันต์รัศมี) will add another piece of hardware to his trophy shelf – the Silpathorn Award – announced yesterday during a press conference at the Culture Ministry's new Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Centre in Bangkok.

The Silpathorn, honoring mid-career Thai contemporary artists, was inaugurated 10 years ago by the ministry's Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC). It was presented annually until 2010, and has been on hiatus for the past four years.

For Kongdej, the Silpathorn adds to his haul this year for his latest film, Tang Wong (ตั้งวง), an indie drama that critiqued contemporary Thai culture with a story about four teenage boys who have to learn a traditional dance in order to fulfill a vow to a spirit-house shrine. Made with the support of the OCAC, Tang Wong premiered in last year's Berlin fest, and went on to win several awards at home, including four Golden Swans at the Subhanahongsa Awards, as well as gongs from the Bangkok Critics Assembly and the Thai Director Association.

Tang Wong was Kongdej's second feature as an independent director, following his quirk-filled 2012 psychological drama P-047, which was also a big award winner. His 2003 debut feature, the coming-of-age sex comedy Sayew, was released by Sahamongkol Film International, as was his sophomore effort, the comedy-drama Cherm (Midnight My Love), in which comedian Petchtai Wongkamlao made a dramatic breakthrough as a lonely taxi driver who strikes up a relationship with a massage-parlor girl. Kongdej then jumped over to GTH for 2008's Kod (Handle Me with Care), about a three-armed man on a road trip with a large-breasted woman.

Kongdej has also penned numerous mainstream-industry screenplays, including 2004's weepy romance The Letter, Tony Jaa's lost-elephant adventure Tom-Yum-Goong, the amnesiac Ananda Everingham drama Me ... Myself, Nonzee Nimibutr's high-seas swashbuckler Queens of Langkasuka, Kantana Animation's Echo Planet (for which he also provided voice talent and an original song) and last year's teen horror Last Summer.

His latest efforts, Tang Wong and P-047, were independent, with Soros Sukhum as producer. Their next project is So Be It, which has been picked up by the new Thai indie outfit Mosquito Films Distribution.

Previous Silpathorn film honorees are Pen-ek Ratanruang (2004), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2005), Wisit Sasanatieng (2006), Thunska Pansittivorakul (2007), Nonzee Nimibutr (2008), Pimpaka Towira (2009) and Aditya Assarat (2010).

The Silpathorn Award's 10th anniversary was commemorated earlier this year with a performance series that included a screening of a shortened version of Thunska's The Terrorists.

According to The Nation, other Silpathorn Award honorees this year are conceptual artist Surasi Kusolwong, actress-playwright Jarunan Phantachat of B-Floor Theatre, architect Suriya Umpansiritatana, writer Rewat Panpipat, conductor Vanich Potavanich, typographer Pairoj Teeraprapar and product designer Chaiyut Plypetch.

Each winner receives 100,000 baht and a commemorative lapel pin.  The awards presentation ceremony will be held on July 17 along with an exhibition that will run through July 27.

Thunska sets online release for two features

Mixing politics and penises, Thunska Pansittivorakul's recent crop of films are so controversial that it's unlikely they will be publically screened in Thailand. He's trying other ways to bring his films to people who want to see them.

Exclusively on his Tumblr page, Thunska will release two features, one on May 5 and another on May 12. Each will run for one week. You'll have to tune in to see what they are.

The online release comes after a shortened version of Thunska's taboo-breaking The Terrorists was screened as part of a the recent Culture Ministry event, "Silpathorn: A Decade of Success in Thai Contemporary Art", which offered performances by artists who have been honored with the Silpathorn Award, which is 10 years old this year. Thunska is among the filmmaking honorees.

His latest feature is Supernatural, which premiered at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Here's more about it from Thunska:

Supernatural's futuristic narrative takes place against a backdrop of the world in 100 years from now, and switches to the past lives of three characters who were reincarnated in three different periods of time. Chronologically, the story begins with three men discussing Karen myths on the Thai-Burmese border, and moves on to an unconventional family with strong traditional values and finally to a spaceship stuck between Mars and Jupiter. In all episodes, we can perceive the shadow of "The Leader," an unseen character with an overwhelming authority on all the other characters across every period of time.

Check out the trailer:

IFFR 2014: World premieres for The Songs of Rice, Supernatural

World premieres of new features by celebrated Thai indie filmmakers Uruphong Raksadad and Thunska Pansittivorakul are among the highlights of yet another strong Thai selection at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which has just completed its schedule.

Uruphong has The Songs of Rice (Pleng khong kao) premiering in the Bright Future program. It's a followup to his 2009 sophomore feature documentary Agrarian Utopia
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Here's the synopsis:

In Thailand, a hymn to rice need not always be sung. A dance, or spectacular homemade fireworks can say the same thing. As can a film, as is convincingly demonstrated by this lyrical, beautifully filmed homage to this essential staple food.

In Thailand, rice is the basis of every meal. Little wonder then that the crop is praised in many ways. In this lyrical film, the rice cycle is given a musical accompaniment - from the moment the crop is planted in endless, moist fields beneath spectacular cloudy skies until the cooked rice is shared out in temples.

A significant part of the film is dedicated to the harvest celebrations, at which men race on bulls and set off huge (and potentially deadly) homemade fireworks, and women swathed in gleaming, colourful fabrics and headpieces move seductively to hypnotic, drawn-out beats.

There are songs praising the qualities of rice, songs about harvesting and preparing it - some simple, some accompanied by an exuberant film clip. And there are moments when the pace slackens - literally - when the images speak for themselves, in slow motion, and tell a story of deep-rooted traditions and affinity with the land that produces this celebrated foodstuff.

Thunska's latest opus is Supernatural (Nua dhamma chat), which makes its bow in the festival's Spectrum lineup. It looks to be exploring similar themes as 2010's Reincarnate and 2011's The Terrorists except that it's a fictional narrative feature – his first – marking a departure from his past efforts, which have all been documentaries or hybrid documentary dramas.

Here's the synopsis:

Science fiction about a future Thailand. Futuristic, experimental, homo-erotic and with elements of a political essay. With a richness of themes and impressions that wouldn’t get past the censor in Thailand. The maker doesn’t mince his words and isn’t afraid to look reality in the eye.

In a futurist world, the Thai kingdom has been transformed by ‘The Leader’ into 'the Realm of people who have done good deeds and earned merits'. It’s a nice place to be, even though the inhabitants are plagued by an indefinable nostalgia. In the old days, people could at least touch each other. Although the Realm has reached version 2.0, technical possibilities remain limited.

This wondrous story of the future is interwoven with stories set in the present and past. According to Pansittivorakul, known for his independently-produced and taboo-breaking documentaries on homosexuality and politics, his first feature is science fiction, yet it is about today’s Thailand. For instance he criticises the need for religion and superstition.

But in the end, this very idiosyncratic, homo-erotically charged essay is above all about time: ‘Time influences everything. The past has to do with the present, and the present is linked to the future.’

Dateline Bangkok has more about Supernatural, which similar to The Terrorists, is unlikely to ever be publicly screened in Thailand.

In the main Tiger Awards competition is previously announced Concrete Clouds, the feature directorial debut by well-known film editor Lee Chatametikool, which makes its European premiere following its debut in competition at last year's Busan International Film Festival.

Concrete Clouds received a lot of support from the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund, which this year celebrates 25 years with a special program, Mysterious Objects – 25 Years of the Hubert Bals Fund. the title of course refers to Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 2000 debut feature, the experimental documentary Mysterious Object at Noon. It, alongside films by the likes of Chen Kaige, Carlos Reygadas and Elia Suleiman, will once again grace the big screen in Rotterdam.

Coincidentally, Apichatpong is among the producers of Concrete Clouds, with Lee having been the editor of most of Apichatpong's features.

Another European premiere is Letters from the South, an omnibus project about the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Among the six directors taking part is Thailand's Aditya Assarat, who describes between Paula and her friends, who have Chinese roots, with her cousin Mumu, who was born in China. Other segments are by Singapore's Royston Tan and Sun Koh, Myanmar's Midi Z and Malaysia's Tan Chui Mui. Tsai Ming-liang, also born in Malaysia, observes the seventh-storey apartment in which he grew up as a child.

Also in the Bright Future is the popular Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, whose feature debut 36 was in the Tiger Awards competition last year.

The Thai selection is rounded out with a pair entries in the Spectrum Shorts program – Pimpaka Towira's Thai-Myanmar border drama Malaria and Mosquitos and Sorayos Prapapan's mistreated-maid tale Boonrerm.

Looks like another big year for indie Thai filmmakers freezing their butts off in the Netherlands. The International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 22 to February 2.

Bodily Fluid Is Revolutionary: Thai queer shorts in New York City

MIX 24, the 24th MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival includes a line-up of shorts from Thailand that question "the legitimacy of Thai gender norms and Asian noe-imperialisms".

The program. called Bodily Fluid Is Revolutionary, showcases the recent work of Thai media artists who push the boundaries of sexual and political expression. The films are by such well-known names as Michael Shaowanasai, Thunska Pansittivorakul and Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, all of whom have been censored or banned by the Ministry of Culture for their debasement of Thai values. Additionally, there will be younger artists Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Chama Lekpla, and Korn Kanogkekarin, "who gleefully carry on the queer tradition despite the climate of political unrest and social turmoil."

Curators are Dredge Kang, Nguyễn Tân Hoàng and Arnika Fuhrmann. They've taken their program name from the title of one of Ratchapoom's films.

Here's the program:

• Ma Vie Incomplète et Inachevée (Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, 2007, 4 min., US premiere) – Grandmother desperately wants her granddaughter to appease her sexual need with her little tongue, but her desire won’t be easily satisfied as her own son’s, the girls’ father, also wants his daughter for the same purpose.
• X (Korn Kanogkekarin, 2010, 5 min., US premiere) – X for symmetry. X for chromosome. X for erasure. X marks the spot.
• After Shock (Wan Fa Suai [The day the sky was beautiful], Thunska Pansittivorakul, 2005, 12 min., NY premiere) – A silent foray across the skies, the streets, an amusement park, and the commercial areas of a small town ultimately takes us to the ocean. Across the water, we close in on a young man’s crotch. The film culminates in blood and semen.
• Observation of the Monument (Michael Shaowanasai, 2008, 3 min., US premiere) – The viewer is positioned in the crowd, directed to look up at the one who is placed on the pedestal.
• I’m Fine (Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, 2008, 3 min., US premiere) – The director/actor sits in a cage on a hot sunny day in front of Democracy Monument in Bangkok. She’s used to it; she’s doing fine.
• Essence de Femme (Chama Lekpla, 2011, 16 min., US premiere) – What would it look like if humanity had no gender? A kathoey noi (baby tranny) shows us how to cook international chicken curry (curry is slang for prostitute in Thai). People have sex with places, the locations they inhabit. A girly boy and a girly girl play snooker and then get dirty. These three scenarios propose new modes of sexuality and relationality.
• Look at Me! (Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, 2007, 5 min., B&W, US premiere) – On a stormy night, we catch glimpses of each other.
• Don't Forget Me (Manatsak Dorkmai, 2003, 10 min., US premiere) – Archival footage of the October 6, 1976 massacre of pro-democracy student protestors in Bangkok is juxtaposed with a Siam Society visit to the Yellow Banana Leaf Ghosts tribe.
• Burmese Man Dancing (Nok Paksnavin, 2008, 8 min., US premiere) – Images of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand are overlaid with Thai commentary about them. Subtitles are provided in an invented language.
• Middle-Earth (Thunska Pansittivorakul, 2007, 8 min., US premiere) – “To show naked men is forbidden in Thailand, but the fact that we did show it on a big screen is a statement. It is my political expression. To just show it, without saying anything more, already means something. The authorities ban films for the silliest reasons, so here it is.”

The fest, running November 15 to 20 is at MIX Factory, 45 Bleecker Street. The Thai program is on November 29. Find out more at the Facebook event page.

Thunska's Terrorists and Kisses at BACC

Thunska Pansittivorakul's latest controversial feature The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย, Poo Kor Karn Rai) will screen in Thailand after all.

Not in a commercial run at a cinema, because, with its mix of politics and penises, it would never be passed by censors for that. But it will be part of an exhibition at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

The Terrorists will show on the sidelines of the Dialogic exhibition at the BACC, which runs from Thursday, July 21 until September 25. The opening reception is at 6pm on Thursday.

Thunska will have video installation in Dialogic called KISS = ปี้, which looks at "farang-styled kisses" vs. "Thai-styled kisses", and, in the same vein as The Terrorists and his other recent features, will comment on politics and history and the treatment of homosexuals and "terrorists" – folks on the fringes of society.

You can find out more about Thunska's work at the Dialogic website.

Other artists taking part in Dialogic are writer Lom Penkaew, designer Pracha Suveeranon, visual artist Surasri Kusolwong, performance artist Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon, multimedia artists Mahasamut Bunyarak and Sedhawat Aoudha, architect Singh Intrachooto and singer Tul Waitulkiat of the rock band Apartment Khunpa. In the exhibition, the artists "interpret the cycle of birth, pain, and death and all that it entails, from eating to sleeping to having sex", according to an item in the Sunday Nation.

The Terrorists, also in competition this week at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Poland, screens at 3.30pm on Saturday, July 23 at the BACC.

The screening venue is a corner of the BACC's eighth-floor gallery, on a bare white wall where there are a handful of beanbag chairs strewn around. If you want a seat, get there early. It's on the sidelines of Dialogic as part of the Morbid Symptom screening series by Film Virus. See the DK Film House blog for the complete line-up.

Thunska's Terrorists in competition at New Horizons

There was an election yesterday and as a result Thailand has a new prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who makes history has the country's first female premier. Despite that she's the sister of the PM who was ousted in a military coup five years ago and was backed by the "red shirt" protesters who became emblematic of the wide divisions in Thai society, there's hope for reconciliation.

Meanwhile, a film that comments on Thai politics, the disparity between the elite and the poor and people on the fringes of society, The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย, Poo Kor Karn Rai), is in competition in Poland's New Horizons International Film Festival.

Directed by Thunska Pansittivorakul, it's a magnum opus for the director, continuing with themes he explored in This Area Is Under Quarantine (banned in Thailand), Reincarnate and his various short films, which combine political commentary and male homosexual erotic fantasies.

Produced by Jürgen Brüning, best known for his work with director Bruce La Bruce, The Terrorists premiered earlier this year at the Berlin Film Festival.

Since Berlin, The Terrorists has had some private screenings, allowing more folks to see it.

The New Horizons International Film Festival runs from July 21 to 31.

The Terrorists is up for a Teddy

Thunksa Pansittivorakul's The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย, Poo Kor Karn Rai) is playing in the Berlinale Forum, and while that is not a competition slot, the maverick indie director's latest provocative effort is eligible for the Teddy Award, which is for any film that has "queer content".

Here's what the Teddy Awards website says about The Terrorists:

The movie is divided into seventeen unrelated segments and is a mixture of both documentary and experimental film genres. By inhabiting the lives of laymen from different parts of Thailand, the movie brings us through blurry trails, distorted memories and recently constructed histories. We unearth missing pieces of the puzzle in our attempt to understand why Thai democracy is still considered backwards and frozen. Are we deceiving ourselves that we are in a democratic society when we are not?

The movie begins on a fishing boat, as we observe two boys conversing in an indecipherable tongue. It moves on to contemplate the light penetrating the sea and observe small lives swimming under the surface overlapped with a human body victimized by an unseen person. Beneath the darkness of a rubber farm, only faint light from the lamps illuminates the way. The truth from our present is superimposed with the blood-thirst from the past. The past is erased from the page of Thai history, and what is left is only the accusation that they are the terrorists.

By the way, the jury of this year's Teddy Award includes Thai raconteur Victor Silakong, the director of the World Film Festival of Bangkok, which tried to program Thunska's This Area Is Under Quarantine back in 2009, only to have it rejected by one of the cogs in Thailand's confusing film-censorship bureaucracy.

On Wednesday, Thunska will participate in a Berlinale Talent Campus presentation, As Queer As It Gets. He's with filmmaker Wieland Speck (one of the initiators of the Teddy Award), indie producer Christine Vachon, John Greyson the video artist, and director Monika Treut. They'll discuss the concept and form of the "queer film", the possible future role of queer cinema and the challenges faced by filmmakers in less queer-friendly parts of the world.

Should be interesting.

The Terrorists has three screenings at the Berlin International Film Festival. The first was on Saturday night. It, along with Aditya Assarat's Hi-So, was reportedly sold out. There's also a Valentine's Day screening and the last one on Friday, February 18.

Here's the official synopsis from the festival:

A black cloak of forgetting, suppressing and covering has descended on the events that took place in Bangkok in spring 2010. Black as the night of complete darkness in which the film opens. Two men are in a fishing boat talking. One feels more than one sees that the seawater around them is warm and smooth, teeming with brightly-colored fish. By night, the rubber plantation also comes across as enticing and full of secrets, until lurid reminders of the bloody massacre flash up. This film arose from of a state of shock – about the news, about the subsequent repression in the authoritarian kingdom but also about the debilitating passivity that followed the pro-democracy Red Shirt uprising. It is a radical personal assessment in 17 episodes. An angry protest in the form of a diary, where sexual resistance and erotic fantasies are juxtaposed with thoughtful rummaging through the director’s family album, creating a confusing pamphlet. As a young boy in the 1970s, Thunska was already forced to flee Bangkok for the south with his mother. The film poses questions without knowing the answers, providing an unusual insight into an extremely traumatized society.

Top 10 Thai films of 2010

First of all, apologies to the couple of readers who've been asking me when I'm going to get around to posting this. Not sure I can explain why it's taken until the middle of February to complete it, but here it is.

The year in Thai cinema of 2010 started out triumphantly, with Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives winning the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Powered by its Cannes win, Uncle Boonmee quickly secured a limited release in Thai cinemas, heralding a growing acceptance in Thailand for Thai independent cinema.

A pair of festival favorites from my 2009 Top 10 list, the indie films Agrarian Utopia and Mundane History, also had limited runs in Bangkok in 2010 and along with Uncle Boonmee are nominated for many awards here in Thailand. Meanwhile, the film industry experienced lucrative success with teen romantic dramas like Guan Muen Ho and First Love, which means that there will be more commercial films along those lines.

Thailand's film-ratings system looked to show some daring with the release of the 20- movie Sin Sisters 2 – probably the worst movie of the year. It showed lots of skin and some sex. There was also the release of the rated-18+ Brown Sugar "erotic" movies from Sahamongkol Film International.

But then toward the end of the year, the censors showed they were just as stubborn and intolerant as ever with the banning of Insects in the Backyard, a sexually explicit gay-themed social drama by independent director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit.

Well, without further ado, let's get to my favorite Thai films of 2010.

10. Tai Hong (Still, a.k.a. Die a Violent Death)

Horror from the Thai film industry was on the wane in 2010, giving way to romances and slapstick comedies, but there were still a few decent examples, including Tai Hong, a quartet of short thrillers produced by Poj Arnon for Phranakorn. Joining Poj in his fun were indie directors Chartchai Ketknust, Manus Worrasingha and Tanwarin Sukkhapisit. Among the tales was a topical drama about the agonized spirits of a New Year's Eve nightclub fire, echoing 2009's Santika tragedy. The foursome of loosely interlinked stories had decent performances from top stars like "Golf" Akara Amarttayakul, "Kratae" Supaksorn Chaimongkol and Mai Charoenpura.

9. Unreal Forest

Like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Singaporean director Sherman Ong and a few other indie filmmakers, Jakrawal Nilthamrong makes movies that aren't necessarily designed to be shown in cinemas. While Unreal Forest has been shown in film festivals, in Bangkok its major release was as an art installation at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. That's just a smidgen of what made Unreal Forest unique. The film was the result of an interesting experiment by the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which commissioned Asian filmmakers to travel to Africa and make movies. With a low budget, Jakrawal's approach was to make a documentary of his process of recruiting Zambian filmmakers, watching them work and then showing the story they came up with, which is about a shaman coming to a village to try and heal a sick boy. There's also an ironic message of Dutch colonialism and colonialism in general and how it relates to Thailand. As a bonus the film makes stunning use of Zambia's landmark Victoria Falls.

8. Eternity (Chua Fah Din Salai)

This Eternity is a breathtakingly lavish and steamy romantic melodrama, set in the 1930s, with sumptuous costuming and a fantastic cast, led by Ananda Everingham and "Ploy" Chermarn Boonyasak as cheating lovers chained together "until eternity". Breaking at 13-year hiatus from filmmaking, veteran drama teacher ML Bhandevanop Devakula directs this adaptation of Malai Choopanit's 1943 novel. The initial theatrical release was a sleeper summer hit that became one of the year's top 10 movies at the box office and it looks set to rule this year's movie-awards season. The original was rated 15+ while the three-hour director's cut was rated 18+ and showed more skin and sex.

7. Eternity (Tee Rak)

The other Eternity, the indie Eternity (ที่รัก, Tee Rak), by director Sivaroj Kongsakul – making his feature debut – is an existential romance that's an autobiographical ode to Sivaroj's late father. It traces the man's thoughts and memories in his afterlife, from a tearful ghost, riding a motorcycle around his old haunts, to memories of his youthful courtship and finally to a time when recollections about him have faded. Full of nostalgia, tears and longing, it's slow and quiet with that far-away camera work that's a trademark of indie arthouse cinema. Eternity is an lingering emotional musing. Following its recent Tiger Award win at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Eternity will be making its way around the film-festival circuit in the year to come and making sure Sivaroj is another Thai name to be reckoned with.

6. Shadow of the Naga (Nak Prok)

One of the reasons I began feel hopeful about the future of Thai cinema under the ratings system was this film – a film-noir thriller that took a serious look at Thai Buddhism and tackled taboo subjects with a story about three bank robbers who hide their loot in a temple and then pose as monks in order to retrieve it. In this place of contemplation, greed and rage boil to the surface. There's strong, showy performances all around by the cast of Somchai Kemklad, Ray MacDonald, Pitisak Yaowanan, Inthira Charoenpura and Sa-ad Piampongsan. Director Phawat Panangkasiri's drama languished in Sahamongkol's vaults for three years before producers decided the time was right to release it. The ratings board passed it with an 18+ rating though there were pop-up warning messages for scenes that go against Buddhist practices.

5. Baby Arabia

A soulful, spiritual triumph, the lively Arab-Malay music of the band Baby Arabia propels this documentary by Panu Aree, Kaweenipon Ketprasit and Kong Rithdee. Unusually for a Thai film, it's not about Buddhism but about Islam, a faith that isn't ordinarily heard about in Thailand unless it's connected to the extremists, violence and deaths in southern part of the country. And aside from showcasing the infectious music and telling the story of the band, that's the point of the movie. It's an effort to show a side of Islam that isn't ordinarily heard from – presenting the moderate viewpoint that by its very nature doesn't make itself heard.

4. Reincarnate

Thunska Pansittivorakul's 2008 documentary This Area Is Under Quarantine was an explosive combination of political commentary – banned video footage of Thai army brutality against Muslim men – and young men having sex. It was prevented from being screened at the 2009 World Film Festival of Bangkok on a technicality by censors who said they weren't authorized to permit it. Whatever that meant. Essentially, they banned it, though not officially. Anyway, Thunska became unrepentant, and he ups the ante in Reincarnate, which screened at the Rotterdam fest, in Berlin and Buenos Aires last year. Featuring an on-screen masturbation and ejaculation with risky metaphorical social commentary, Thunska didn't even try show Reincarnate in Thailand. He looks to be continuing on that track with The Terrorists, produced by Germany's Jürgen Brüning, and screening at the Berlin International Film Festival.

3. Insects in the Backyard

Tanwarin Sukkapisit's soul is poured into Insects in the Backyard, a magnum opus from the gay cross-dressing director. It's by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Tanwarin stars as the flamboyant, Audrey Hepburn-inspired transvestite father of a troubled teenage son and daughter. The kids, confused about their own sexuality, rebel against their eccentric father by entering the sex trade. There's fetish sex, with the teenage characters in school uniform. The explicit film, with a damning social message, screened in Vancouver and at the World Film Festival of Bangkok, but efforts by Tanwarin to secure a limited release for Insects have been thwarted by censors, who deemed the film to be against public morals. It's Thailand's first officially banned film under the ratings system. They were disturbed by fantasy images of the son killing his father. Another scene that had the culture watchdogs barking was when Tanwarin is watching porn and her dress is pulled back to reveal her man parts.

2. The Red Eagle

At first look, Wisit Sasanatieng's Insee Dang (The Red Eagle) is a dark, brooding, ultra-violent affair that is quite unlike his colorful cult-favorite earlier efforts like Tears of the Black Tiger or Citizen Dog. A deeper look will reveal Wisit's cheeky sense of humor and sly digs against product placement and the cliches of Hollywood action films. Perhaps it's Wisit's frustration boiling to surface, since making The Red Eagle – a much-anticipated reboot of the 1960s action franchise that starred Mitr Chaibancha, with Ananda Everingham taking over the storied role – left Wisit feeling so creatively hamstrung he vowed it would be his last studio film. But it's not his last film. So even if Wisit doesn't come back to direct Insee Dang out of his cliffhanger ending, there's hope he'll get his indie Muay Thai film Suriya off the ground.

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Winner of the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or – the first for a Thai film – Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee is a bit different form his previous features like Tropical Malady and Syndromes and a Century, which had elliptical qualities that told abstract stories. Here, the stories are just fractured as ever but there's a solid narrative that makes Boonmee perhaps more accessible than the previous films. Sure, there's still viewers who haven't a clue what to make of such things as the Monkey Ghost with the glowing red eyes, the ghost wife and the princess and the catfish. Apichatpong has said his movie channels his movie memories, mainly from when he was growing up and going to the Khon Kaen cinemas in the 1980s. The magic of Uncle Boonmee is that in its blissfully weird way it can speak to anyone's movie memories. For example, I felt like I was watching Apichatpong's version of Star Wars, even though he's said he wasn't influenced by George Lucas. Though perhaps Planet of the Apes fit in there somewhere.

Hi-So, Terrorists in Berlinale Forum

Two Thai films are in this year's Forum program announced yesterday by the Berlin International Film Festival, The Terrorists by Thunska Pansittivorakul and Hi-So by Aditya Assarat.

Making its world premiere is The Terrorists (ผู้ก่อการร้าย, Poo Kor Karn Rai). Thunska's film is produced by Jürgen Brüning, the German producer who's been behind films by controversial director Bruce La Bruce, such as Otto; or, Up with Dead People and L.A. Zombie.

With Thunska's now-trademark explosive combination of political commentary and young men in their underwear briefs, The Terrorists "is dedicated to the deceased and the wounded in the crackdowns on the protesters in Thailand from April 10th-May 19th, 2010 – the number of victims is believed to exceed 2,000 – as well as to those Red Shirts who were assassinated after the incident. Abhisit Vejjajiva's government shall be condemned for its continuing demolition of our country and for its lies and slander of its own people. We curse those who are behind the massacre in the middle of the capital."

As with Thunska's previous film, last year's Reincarnate, he has no expectations of releasing the movie in Thailand – a tact he's taken since his 2008 film This Area Is Under Quarantine was disallowed from screening at the 2009 World Film Festival of Bangkok.

There's more about The Terrorists at ThaiIndie.com and at the film's blog.

Aditya's Hi-So makes its European premiere at the Berlinale. The indie romance starring Ananda Everingham premiered at last year's Pusan fest and later screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

(Via Film Business Asia)

Kong Rithdee shows clips of censored films

The Bangkok Post's Kong Rithdee has made a video in which he discusses film censorship in Thailand.

In his Reel Rithdee short, he shows clips from films that Thai authorities have deemed inappropriate.

There's a lot of footage from Tanwarin Sukkhapisit's so-far disapproved Insects in the Backyard. It was viewed by the Culture Ministry's National Film Board (including director Prachya Pinkaew) on Wednesday night but they have yet to come to a decision whether they will permit other Thai people to see it.

Kong also mentions Thunksa Pansittivorakul's This Area Is Under Quarantine, an explosive combination of explicit gay romance and documentary on Islamic separatism in southern Thailand. In that movie, Thunska shows clips from a banned VCD that contains footage of what's known as the Tak Bai incident, in which at least 85 people were killed. In the incident, Muslim men at a protest were rounded up by the Thai army, stripped of their shirts, ordered to lie face down on the ground, have their hands bound behind them and then stacked into trucks for a journey in which most of those who perished died by suffocation.

And a video about film censorship in Thailand wouldn't be complete without a mention of Syndromes and a Century, the 2006 film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul that received almost-universal critical acclaim worldwide, except in Thailand, where cultural minders issued personal insults at the filmmaker and ordered six cuts to the film, including scenes of doctors drinking whiskey in the hospital, a doctor kissing his girlfriend and a Buddhist monk playing guitar. Apichatpong went ahead and released the gutted corpse of a film, replacing the scenes snipped by censors with scratched black film leader.

Now, here's something worth noting: under the Byzantine bureaucracy that has been created under Thailand's new film law, none of these films I've mentioned so far are actually banned. They aren't!

Under the new motion-picture ratings system, "Ban" is an official category. It's that hidden seventh classification, following "P" for promote, "G" for general audiences, the 13+, 15+ and 18+ age-advisory ratings that no one pays attention to and the restricted 20- rating.

Insects is merely not yet permitted. And anyone who screens the film is liable to fines of 200,000 to 1 million baht and a year in jail. But it's not banned, honest!

Quarantine was submitted for screening at last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok, but the committee it was presented to couldn't give it a rating because it wasn't authorized to since the actual copyright holder wasn't the one asking for the rating. Or some-such nonsense that I still don't fully understand. So Quarantine couldn't be shown due to a technicality. But it's not banned.

Kong also shows clips from foreign films that have actually been given the "ban" rating, the French horror thriller Frontière(s) and Kevin Smith's sweet comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

We are fine: International Short Film Festival Hamburg focuses on Thailand

Fourteen Thai shorts from 2000 to 2010 are featured in We Are Fine: Thailand – Country Focus at the International Short Film Festival Hamburg.

"We are Fine is a collection of films which discreetly deal with everyday life in Thailand," says the festival website.

The selection includes works by such well-know indie names as Panu Aree, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Jakrawal Nilthamrong and Uruphong Raksasad.

Shorts I know by heart include Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit's Bangkok Tanks, featuring MSN messages sent on the night of the September 19, 2006, coup; I'm Fine Sa-Bai-Dee-Ka, with Tanwarwin Sukkhapisit sitting in the hot sun in a cage by the Democracy Monument, make-up melting off and reassuring passerbys by she's fine, just fine, thank you; and the enjoyable Four Boys, White Whiskey and Grilled Mouse by Wichanon Somumjarn.

Also of interest is Na Bua, shot on the sidelines during the production of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Primitive project.

Here's the program:

• Karn La Krung Nueng (Once Upon a Time), Panu Aree, 2000 • 13 min.
• Sukati (A Tale of Heaven), Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, 2010, 5:40 min.
• Swamp, Tanatchai Bandasak, 2008, 2:25 min.
• Ya Lerm Chan (Don’t Forget Me), Manutsak Dokmai, 2003, 10 min.
• Na Bua (Small Village and Its Remains), Chaisiri Jiwarangsan, 2009, 15:30 mon.
• Orchestra, Jakrawal Nilthamrong, 2008, 22:20 min.
• Mahasajan Krungtap (Unseen Bangkok), Thunska Pansittivorakul, 2004, 6 min.
• Wan Tee Yao Nan (The Longest Day), Uruphong Raksasad, 2005, 13 min.
• Tay Kan Wayla (‘... I did not dream last night’), Taiki Sakpisit, 9:44 min.
• Hua-lam-pong, Chulayarnnon Siriphol, 2004, 12 min.
• Tiang Naa Noi Koi Rak (Four Boys, White Whiskey and Grilled Mouse), Wichanon Somumjarn, 2009, 10 min.
• I‘m fine. Sa-bai-dee-kha!, Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, 2008, 3:30 min.
• Bangkok Tanks, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, 2006, 5 min.
• Chai Wan Nhee (Now Showing), Krissakorn Thinthupthai, 2009, 21.

The Hamburg fest started yesterday and runs until June 7.

Panorama/Late Night screenings for Reincarnate in Buenos Aires

The 12th Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI) opened on Thursday and among the 422 features and shorts in the line-up is Thunska Pansittivorakul's provocative experimental romantic thriller and documentary Reincarnate.

It's screening in the Panorama / Late Night section alongside such films as Black Dynamite, Brillante Mendoza's dark and bloody Kinatay and Rob Zombie's The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.

Genius programming if you ask me.

Full of symbolism about Thailand's red-yellow-blue color-coded politics, which are poised for a meltdown, Reincarnate is a taboo breaker and leaves nothing untouched.

Here's what the festival's website has to say about it:

Believe it or not, less than a year ago Thailand passed a bill that forces all films to meet six strict requisites in order to be screened in the country. The rule, detailed in the sign that opens Thunska Pansittivorakul’s new film, aims at “preserving” the people’s “moral values”. Pansittivorakul’s reaction –after his previous film This Area Is Under Quarantine was only screened at Rotterdam because of this law – was subversive, vital and primary: he made a film that breaks each and everyone of those rules. But the incredible thing about Reincarnate, and what’s most amazing about his director’s talent, is that the film exists beyond this introduction, which goes parallel to any justification. Yes, indeed, the film goes on slowly and almost invisibly through a non-traditional path of denunciation; it follows two lovers who go on a trip to an island where past and present melt together, among tourist rides and time outs in hotel rooms where you feel you got there either too early or too late. Although, every now and again, the camera does get there on time, even if that doesn’t please the promoters of such a stupidly anachronic law, and the screen fills up with (for now) forbidden Thai sex.

Reincarnate was previously screened at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and at ICI Berlin.

BAFICI runs until April 18.

IFFR 2010 review: Reincarnate

• Directed by Thunska Pansittivorakul
• Starring Panuwat Wisessiri
• World premiere at 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam; reviewed on screener DVD
• Wise Kwai's rating: 5/5

I'll never look at an orange the same way again. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat one. Traumatized by citrus fruit is what I am, all thanks to Thunska Pansittivorakul and his new feature, Reincarnate.

Oranges actually cause the main character in Reincarnate to become nauseous. He explains his mother always gave them to him, and he never told her they made him ill. It's just one of the many mysteries of Reincarnate.

Full of Thunska's wickedly playful sense of humor, his indulgences and uncompromising viewpoints, Reincarnate is a quintessential work by the maverick gay indie filmmaker. It's a challenge to watch, at least it was for me, but is not without rewards. It may be his best work yet.

Thunska does not shy away from reveling in the naked flesh of the male form. His camera explores his young actor's body like it's a new world, waiting to be discovered. His hand reaches out and caresses that bare skin, and, at one point, massages a young man's penis to an erection and strokes it until he has what is purported to be legitimate Thai cinema's first money shot.

It's not the only thing that will provoke Thailand's censors, who take a dim view of just showing genitalia, let alone long, staring takes that serve as anatomical studies.

In prologue text, Thunska details the history of Thailand's first ratings system coming into effect in 2009 and the banning of his previous feature This Area Is Under Quarantine from the 2009 World Film Festival of Bangkok.

Quarantine addressed Islam and homosexuality in Thai society, and culminated in two young men -- one Buddhist from Northeast Thailand the other a Muslim from Southern Thailand -- having sex in a hotel room. But the reason cited for the film's ban wasn't because of the nudity and sex but because it contained suppressed footage from 2004's Tak Bai incident, in which male Muslim protesters were rounded up, bound and stuffed into trucks. Some 85 detainees died, mostly from suffocation.


Reincarnate -- the title signifying a rebirth or reboot -- also delves into Thai politics and society. The prologue text helpfully explains Thailand's color-coded political factions -- yellow for the middle- and upper-class Bangkok elite who supported the 2006 coup that unseated populist billionaire prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who's supported by the red-shirted rural poor. There's also the shadowy blue shirts who serve the self-interests of influential political coalition leader Newin Chidchob.

Lounging in their room at an island resort, the director-cameraman and his actor play the woodblock stacking game of Jenga. The blocks are painted red, yellow and blue. Build the wobbly tower up, pull one of the blocks out and watch it topple.

There is also allusive commentary about the proliferation of the invasive water hyacinth, an aquatic plant that chokes out native flora and fauna in the estuaries and rivers.

Yet through the jerking off and metaphors about Thai society, Reincarnate is actually a pleasure to watch.

An interesting effect is when the "student" stands in front of a window, one side of which is open and has bright sunlight streaming through, silhouetting the man's figure. The other side of the window is closed, filtering the light and providing a contrasting half. Another scene has the light streaming down at an angle, framing the man as he showers. Cigarette smoke hovers in the light. There's strobe effects in one scene and shaky cam in another as the subject is chased through ruined huts, causing me to think "oh, experimental".

The film travels the breadth and length of the country, hitting the historic island of Koh Si Chang, at one time a royal retreat but now an anchorage point for freighter ships and weekend getaway for Bangkok holidaymakers. Trat province further down the Eastern Seaboard, next door to Cambodia is another location. And there is documentary footage of a son visiting his mother in Songkhla in the South, crediting Thai indie film godfather Apichatpong Weerasethakul as producer.

Like the orange, Reincarnate is a luscious, juicy film. Beautifully framed and full of infectious playful energy and experimentalism. And hard to categorize. Travelogue, documentary, romantic drama, political satire and social commentary make an intoxicating, sticky and possibly volatile cocktail. Just watch out where you're sticking that thumb.

It will likely never be shown publicly in Thailand. See it if you dare!


Related posts:

• Berlin screening added for Reincarnate
• Reincarnate, Slice selected for NETPAC competition at Rotterdam
• Full program for 39th Rotterdam fest is online
• Thunska's Reincarnate to make world premiere in Rotterdam

Berlin screening added for Reincarnate

After its premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Thunska Pansittivorakul's experimental gay romantic thriller Reincarnate will go to Berlin.

The screening is at 7pm on February 3 at ICI Berlin (Institute for Cultural Inquiry) along with Thunska's short films, Vous vous Sovien de moi? and Unseen Bangkok.

Gertjan Zuilhof, programmer of the IFFR, further describes Reincarnate.

A gay love story. A story in the form of a quest. Call it experimental, call it a mixture of documentary and fiction. A very personal film too. It is the director himself who shares his life and feelings with us.

Yet it is possibly primarily a political film. The film resists a new law in Thailand that which is going a step further than censorship. Showing certain things (for instance sexual actions) is not only banned, but is also a criminal offence.

For a filmmaker who feels the need to focus on physical passion in his films, there is then a problem. Thunska argues that he would have to give up filmmaking if he could not follow his (artistic and sexual) motivations. A public screening in a cinema in Thailand is out of the question for this film. The filmmaker would be arrested. It's ironic that the filmmaker was given the national Silpathorn Award by a previous government as being an important Thai artist.

More on this later.

Reincarnate, Slice selected for NETPAC competition at Rotterdam

Two edgy Thai films -- Thunska Pansittivorakul's censor-baiting experimental romantic thriller Reincarnate and Kongkiat Komesiri's gritty crime thriller Slice (Cheun) -- are in consideration for the NETPAC Award at this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. The award is given by a panel of Asian filmmakers and film experts from the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.

Here's the competition line-up:

• To Walk Beside You, Ishii Yuya, Japan
• Ante, Adolfo Alix Jr, Philippines
• Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song, John Torres, Philippines
• Stone is the Earth, Mes de Guzman, Philippines
• Reincarnate, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Thailand
• Slice Kongkiat Khomsiri, Thailand
• elbowroom, Ham Kyoung-Rock, South Korea
• The Annunciation, Hsu Ronin, China
• Moscow, Whang Cheol-mean, South Korea
• Wheat Harvest, Xu Tong, China
• True Noon, Nosir Saidov, Tajikistan
• Third Person Singular, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Bangladesh
• Tale from Kars, Özcan Alper & Zehra Derya Koç & Ülkü Oktay & Ahu Öztürk & Ömer Emre Akay, Turkey

Programmers have also suggested that the NETPAC panel consider two more films from the festival's Forget Africa Project: Memories of a Burning Tree by Sherman Ong from Singapore and Unreal Forest by Thailand's Jakrawal Nilthamrong.

Thunska's Reincarnate as well as Jakrawal's Unreal Forest are making their world premieres in Rotterdam. The main VPRO Tiger Awards competition has the European premiere of Anocha Suwichakornpong's Mundane History. I had an earlier look at the Thai films in the festival's line-up.

IFFR 2010 started yesterday and runs until February 7.

Top 10 films of 2009 podcast

For 90 minutes last Sunday evening, I sat in front of a microphone and made the odd grunt every now and then while Changkui host Passakorn Hongsyok and guest Rikker Dokkum from Thai 101 spoke about my list of the top 10 Thai films of the 2009.

The resulting podcast, Changkui in English Episode 8, is now up, and can be downloaded.

While we recorded, Hong's two boys played with Lego blocks and watched the Fantastic Four, which looked like more fun, despite the fine company I had at the table.

Breaking down the top 10 list, five have made it DVD in Thailand since their cinema runs: Meat Grinder, Phobia 2, Wongkumlao, Nymph and Slice. Of those, only Phobia 2 has reached English-friendly DVD. There's still hope for Meat Grinder, Nymph and Slice in the coming year, with more festival screenings possible. I doubt the comedy Wongkumlao will ever be released for non-Thai-speaking audiences to enjoy, which is too bad.

Two others, Mundane History and Agrarian Utopia, were shown in film festivals in Thailand last year, and will likely see at least a limited theatrical release in Bangkok this year. Cross your fingers and wish hard enough, you might get a DVD of those two.

Colors of Our Hearts will be making its way around to screenings organized for refugees, migrant laborers and advocacy groups after screening last year on World Refugee Day in Chiang Mai and at the World Film Festival of Bangkok. Perhaps the Friends Without Borders group will eventually make the movie available on DVD through its magazine.

I still don't know anything about when the made-for-television short-film anthology Sawasdee Bangkok might air or if it has already.

This Area Is Under Quarantine is banned, never to be seen.

Despite our best efforts to confine the topic to my list of the 10 best Thai feature films I saw last year, the conversation went off the rails a bit at the end, with a shout-out for the Southeast Asian Movie Theater Project, which will soon be wrapping its run.

Again, the podcast is can be downloaded for listening on MP3.

Full program for 39th Rotterdam fest is online

A Thai film made in Africa, a strong statement about censorship, another film that was almost censored and yet another that tested the limits of Thailand's ratings system, works by world-famous filmmakers and a bevy of short films await audiences at the 39th International Film Festival Rotterdam, which has released its full program online.

Among the world premieres is Unreal Forest, a new feature by art-film director Jakrawal Nilthamrong, who was among the Asian filmmakers commissioned by the IFFR's Forget Africa project to travel to Africa and make movies. Jakrawal went to Zambia, where he worked with three young Zambian directors, having them pitch short-film projects to him. "The whole process -- including the auditions and later production discussions and rehearsals -- was recorded on film", with the documentary and "Magic African" images juxtaposed.

Another world premiere will be Reincarnate by Thunska Pansittivorakul. Screening in the Spectrum program, it was among the selections tipped in a preview listing of the festival. The film is ostensibily described as a story about the relationship of a homosexual teacher and his student, but it's more of a statement about censorship from Thunska, who's still stung over having his previous feature, This Area Is Under Quarantine, banned from screening in Thailand.

In a message on Facebook, Thunska says:

Reincarnate starts with a text: 'Thailand has since August 2009 banned the screening of sexual acts and genitals in films and anything that damages the interests of the country or causes disharmony in the people'. Thunska Pansittivorakul's ... This Area Is Under Quarantine (2009), which was only screened at this festival last year, was the first victim. Images of a violent conflict between the government and Muslim demonstrators did not get past the censor. How can any filmmaker still show what is happening in his country? In view of the fact that anything can fall under this law, in Reincarnate he shows for the first time flowing sperm. In his previous films, homosexual love was always prominently, but not explicitly present. Alongside separate sketches of the relationship between pupil and teacher, the film is made up of several cryptic scenes that comment on the oppressive political situation, in which all parties only defend their own interests.

Provocative as always.

Making its European Premiere and competing in the VPRO Tiger Awards will be Mundane History (there's a trailer there), Anocha Suwichakornpong's debut feature which received support from the IFFR's Hubert Bals Fund. When the family drama about a paralyzed young man was screened in Thailand at the World Film Festival of Bangkok, it was given the 20+ rating, the first for a Thai film under the new ratings system, but was reportedly almost banned because of a bathtub scene featuring full-frontal male nudity.

The Bright Future program has Slice (Cheun), directed by Kongkiat Komesiri and based on a story by Wisit Sasanatieng. It's a gory and violent tale about a convict sprung from prison to search for a serial killer who he thinks was his friend in childhood. Rated 18+ in Thailand, it contained nudity, sexual acts and sexuality and extreme violence, including a murder spree in an orgy club.

Another film with strong images, though it was released before the ratings system was enacted, is Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Nymph (Nang Mai), which is part of the Spectrum program. It opens with a young woman being chased into the forest and raped by two men. Later, a cuckhold husband finds a new love in a forest spirit, and the nymph's naked female form is glimpsed among a bundle of knotty tree roots in the deep woods.

Another big name in the program is Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose short film from the Primitive project in the rural village of Nabua, A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, anchors a mini-program of shorts, Letters from Spirits. Chaisiri Jiwarangsan, who is part of Apichatpong's crew, has two works shot on the sidelines of the Primitive project in Nabua, My Mother and Her Portrait and Small Village and Its Remains A fourth film in this Letters lineup is Spirit by Malaysia's Chu-Li Shewring.

And there are several more Thai short films:

• Four Boys, White Whiskey and Grilled Mouse -- Directed by Wichanon Somumjarn and produced by Anocha's Electric Eel Films, this is a delightful short -- one of my favorites from last year's 13th Thai Short Film & Video Festival -- about young guys hanging around in the countryside trying hard to kill boredom.
• In Space -- "A small, delicate story about a young Thai monk and his grandparents in New York. They need each other. Grandparents and grandson remain deeply Thai in their New York environment. When the boy enters a monastery, it is only half-heartedly. He does not feel at home there and searches for purpose in his new life. Then, he sees his grandmother again." Screened at last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok, it's by Visra Vichit-Vadakan, a student filmmaker in New York who had a short Fall at IFFR in '09.
• Rise -- Also by Visra Vichit-Vadakan. "Listen with your eyes shut and you hear a story about parents and their child. Look with your ears shut and you see a street artist. Yet there is a link. A film on two tracks. The visual track shows a young performance artist. On a street in the middle of Bangkok, he paints with his body as a brush and his white clothes as a canvas. The soundtrack is about the relationship between parents and their child. Told intimately."
• Lumphini 2552 -- Tomonari Nishikawa's experimental photography reduces the flora of Lumpini park to a whooshing blur of patterns.
• Sink -- Kirsten Tan directs this Singaporean/Thai short, a "stylized black-and-white film about the relationship between a man and a sink in the sea. Playful with the uninhibited boy, reserved towards the violent young man and deteriorating but resigned with the old man, this sink symbolises man’s different life stages and prompts reflection."

The International Film Festival Rotterdam runs from January 27 to February 7.

Thunska's Reincarnate to make world premiere in Rotterdam

Thailand's cultural watchdogs probably had no idea what they were doing when they banned Thunska Pansittivorakul's This Area Is Under Quarantine from screening at last year's World Film Festival of Bangkok.

The experience has encouraged the maverick indie filmmaker, university teacher and Silpathorn Award winner, whose new feature Reincarnate is set to make its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Here's the description from the IFFR:

In separate sketches, Thunska Pansittivorakul shows the homosexual love between a teacher and pupil more explicitly than ever. Several cryptic scenes refer to the oppressive Thai political situation. A clear reaction to the new law that subjected his previous film, This Area Is Under Quarantine (2009), to censorship.

Here' s the synopsis from the film's press kit, which is available at ThaiIndie.com.

A teacher and his student go for a trip on this magical island where there are urban life and tourist attractions as well as a palace and temples. Moreover, a haunting past still gnaws, spreads, mates and mutates in a loop that can not be eliminated. It dissolves and mixes up with memories affecting the present and possessing the power that can destroy the future. In the vague atmosphere, the place slowly becomes deserted like a nightmare you want to wake away from but can not resist.

And the director's notes, also from the press kit:

August 2009, Kingdom of Thailand has issued a law forbidding films with these contains from screening in the country:

1. Affect the royal institution and constitutional monarchy.
2. Insult or bring disgrace on religions.
3. Cause disharmony among the people.
4. Affect inter-state relationship.
5. Concern sexual intercourse.
6. Contain a scene of sexual activities in which sexual organ is shown.

Moreover, the Board of Censorship can order for cuts or ban a film that [are] against morality, subvert the nation, and affect the security of the nation.

In a way this might be troublesome for commercial filmmakers. But for me this is a chance to do something I have been worried that I would never be able to do because I know that I can’t compromise with the latest censorship law anymore. Whatever you do, you can be judged that you are going against moral standards or sabotaging your own country. Meanwhile the politic situation has split us into many sides. Each side is only interested in its advantage. All of these give me hindsight that whatever happens right now is the collective consequence of our past. Not only it can’t be removed, it is also harming our people and spreading wider and wider that it can’t be easily brought to an end.

Shot on Si Chang island and in Trat province and Songkla, the film includes a documentary segment that gives production credit to Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

There's a trailer at YouTube and it's embedded below.

In addition to Reincarnate, other Thai films that are publicly listed on the IFFR website are:

• Slice (Chuen) -- Kongkiat Komesiri's gruesome hard-boiled serial-killer thriller makes its international festival premiere in the Bright Future program.
• Mundane History (Jao Nok Krajok) -- One of IFFR's earlier announced entries, Anocha Suwichakornpong's debut feature makes its European premiere in the VPRO Tiger Awards competition.
• Nymph -- Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "hallucinating film ... set in a forest inhabited by female ghosts ... about a marriage that has cooled and then is shaken up when the man disappears into the forest for a brief period", is showing in the Spectrum section.

There is also Unreal Forest by Jakrawal Nilthamrong, which was made as part of IFFR's "Forget Africa" program.

The complete program goes online on January 21, with the festival running January 27 to February 7.