Lese majeste fears cause event to drop films

They said they feared being slapped with a lese majeste charge. The decision was announced after the screening of five short films, including the two controversial ones, to a small audience of activists, intellectuals and a select group of journalists on Monday night at The Reading Room, a small private library in Bangkok’s Silom area.

 

“The rules were that [the films] should challenge censorship without breaking the law. But how can we avoid facing a [lese majeste] charge? There’s nothing we can do to stop that,” said Orapin Yingyongpathana, project manager at iLAW, a non-government organisation promoting various legal reforms. 

 

It had organised the competition in collaboration with Bioscope magazine and the Network of Film Viewers of Thailand.

 

Orapin stressed that the organisers’ legal experts had examined the films that were entered in the “Films that Ought to Be Banned” competition. They believed the films did not breach the lese majeste laws – but anyone could file a lese majeste police complaint and both the organisers and the film-maker might have to spend time fighting it in the court.

 

“I don’t feel good. The movie – which should have fought a ban – ended up banning itself,” said Sorayos Prapaphan, producer of “Kim”, one of the banned short films that could not be screened for public viewing on Saturday afternoon at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. There were hilariously ironic sentences in that film, such as the main actor being asked what he thought of the banning of films. 

 

Self censorship

 

“What can I say, I haven’t even watched them,” was the reply.

 

The same character also stated: “If I don’t censor myself, they will censor it for me anyhow,” and postulated, “We can’t really speak about truth in this society?”

 

The audience and the organisers, along with some short-listed film-makers, spent an hour after the private filming debating whether the three banned films should be screened on Saturday or not – and whether they would really be deemed by some as violating the draconian lese majeste law, with its 15-year imprisonment term. 

 

While views differ, in the end it was clear that nobody could take the responsibility on behalf of the film-maker and organisers who might risk jail.

 

“I believed there’s nothing illegal. I wish it could be screened,” said another young film-maker, whose 12-minute movie titled “Pain” was among the two banned by the organisers.