Challenging cinema

Kriengsak "Victor" Silakong, director of the World Film Festival of Bangkok, likes to provoke. And when asked to help narrow down the daunting choices of some 60 entries from 25 countries, he largely steers clear of the usual favourites, instead highlighting movies that challenge but also reward their audiences.
Here, then, is Victor’s 10 “must-see movies” at this year’s World Film Festival of Bangkok:

A Woman and War
Set in Tokyo toward the end of World War II, this drama has been a gut-punch to critics the world over, who were shocked by it brutally frank portrayal of rape. Director Junichi Inoue will be on hand and will perhaps explain more about his powerful film. Saturday, 8.40pm, and Sunday, 3.20pm

Innocent
Another festival guest will be Wong Chen-His, who makes her feature debut with this raw tale of childhood in 1980s Singapore, where a schoolgirl befriends a boy and, being both outsiders, they spend their days hanging around storm drains. Then one day their life is changed by something they should not have seen. November 20 and 22, 3.20pm

What They Don’t Talk About, When They Talk About Love
Indonesian writer-director Mouly Surya’s drama is a typical tale of high-school romance, of girls chasing boys and boys chasing girls. Except the students are blind. Don’t miss the sights beheld by audiences at Sundance, Rotterdam and other festivals. Sunday, 3.20pm and November 24, 3.30pm

Clandestine Childhood
Set in 1979 during Argentina’s military dictatorship, Benjamin Avila’s semi-autobiographical memoir follows the travails of a fifth-grader forced to live under an assumed identity in order to protect his resistance-fighter parents. Saturday and November 20, 8.40pm

The Cleaner
“Not to be missed,” Victor says of this Peruvian drama. In the midst of a mysterious, devastating epidemic, a cleaning man who sterilises the apartments of the recently dead discovers an eight-year-old boy in hiding. What makes the film powerful is that story is conveyed without much dialogue. Saturday, 6pm and November 23, 9pm.

Workers
Dog lovers, take note: This Mexican drama is about a maid who has been left to care for the beloved pet dog of her dead mistress. Meanwhile a janitor in a factory awaits retirement. They are connected by a romantic past, but the future is unexpected. November 23, 9pm, and November 24, 1pm

Stranger by the Lake
While the lesbian drama “Blue is the Warmest Colour” had tongues wagging after winning the top-prize Palme d’Or at Cannes, “Stranger” won the honorary Queer Palm and best director for Alain Guiraudie in the Un Certain Regard category. Taking place at a gay cruising area, it has a very explicit sex scene and, while it’ll raise eyebrows here, in France “it’s no big deal”, Victor says. November 21, 8.30pm, November 22, 9pm

Cambodia, After Farewell
More and more stories are coming out of Cambodia as the country’s filmmakers find their voice. Among them is Iv Charbonneau-Ching, who returned home with his mother and his aunts, having fled to France during the Khmer Rouge reign. “It is time to face the terrifying reality they once confronted: exile, forced work, torture and death. This reality is all the more unbearable since my mother and her sisters firmly believed in the terrible illusion created by the Pol Pot propaganda abroad,” says Charbonneau-Ching. He’ll be attending the fest. November 18, 3.20pm and November 23, 6.30pm

Baan Sai Thong
“This is our ‘Gone with the Wind’,” says Victor of this sweeping story of upper-class power and the wealth and illusions it creates. Directed by Ruj Ronnapop, this classic 1987 drama marked the transition into dramatic acting for this year’s Lotus Award recipient Jarunee Suksawat. November 18, 8.30pm and November 23, 3.30pm

Tabu
Portugal’s Miguel Gomes directs this bifurcated black-and-white drama. It begins in present-day Lisbon, where a gravely ill elderly woman asks a neighbour to pass the word of her condition onto a man no one’s heard her mention. The scene then shifts to a forbidden love affair in colonial-era Africa 50 years before. November 19, 8.20, November 23, 9pm

DARE TO WATCH
The 11th World Film Festival of Bangkok runs from Friday until November 24 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.
Tickets are Bt120. For bookings, see www.SFCinemacity.com.
For more details, visit www.WorldFilmBKK.com.