Sense and cinema

Female directors, “queer” films, wartime pasts and a certain landmark movie theatre all figure in the power-packed programme for the sixth edition of the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival put on by the Thai Film Archive.
Opening the fest at 1pm tomorrow is “The Scala”, a short documentary by Thai indie filmmaker Aditya Assarat, best known for his award-winning drama “Wonderful Town”. Part of the “Power of Asian Documentary” package commissioned by KBS Busan and the Busan International Film Festival, “The Scala” premiered last year at the South Korean fest.
The film about a movie theatre comes to the Salaya screen amidst concerns for the future of the Scala, which is threatened by redevelopment plans for Siam Square. The Scala and its sister Lido cinemas currently have a stay of execution that lasts through 2018, but nothing is certain.
Rather than make a case to save it, Aditya seems resigned to the Scala’s demise, and he’s taking what he reckons to be a last look around. “Now that I am older, I have become nostalgic,” he says in the film’s synopsis. “There are many things about it I wanted to document: the staff, who are all old now, the space, which is very beautiful, and the ideal, of movie-watching as a special event. In a way, the Scala is similar to all of us who persevere, despite the difficulties, to celebrate cinema in the way we remember it to be.”
In all, Salaya Doc has eight of the 10 episodes of the “Power of Asian Documentary”, which had indie directors from 10 Asian nations reflecting on the histories of their own film scenes. Others include “The Story of Kazakh Cinema”, “Green, White, Red” from Iran, “The Immortals” from India, “We Dream Movies” from China and “Return to Nostalgia” from Malaysia.
Other programmes in Salaya Doc will be “Sense and Sensibility”, which groups documentaries by female directors, the general catch-all category of “Discovery” and the Asean Documentary Competition, which has entries this year from Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia sprinkled throughout the programme
In “Sense and Sensibility”, the entries include “Tour of Duty”, in which an elderly Korean woman who used to serve hamburgers to American soldiers during the war is brought news from the past by a mysterious black woman. British documentary director Kim Longinotto offers “Dreamcatcher”, about a former prostitute and drug addict who devotes her life to helping save teen girls from the streets. And “Tea Time” pulls up a chair for tea and talks with five feisty seniors who reminisce on the past and reflect on current affairs.
A major highlight of “Discovery” is “The Memory of Justice”, a landmark 1976 film that looked at wartime atrocities by the Germans in World War II, and by the Americans in Vietnam. Taking up the afternoon block in Salaya on Monday, the 278-minute documentary was recently restored and presented at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. And another marathon screening will be “Homeland: Iraq Year Zero”, an award-winning chronicle of everyday life in Iraq before and after the US invasion. It runs 334 minutes and will be presented in its entirety on April 2 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Cobbled together from the various programmes is the “Screening Queer” line-up of documentaries on sexuality and gender issues. These include the competition entry “Mommy from Jambi” as well as “Calalai In-Betweenness” from Indonesia, “Before the Last Curtain Falls” on ageing German drag queens, “The Landscape Within” from the Philippines and “Visible Silence”, a US-Thai doc that peers into the Thai lesbian realm of “toms” and “dees”.

Two venues
The Salaya International Documentary Film Festival runs from tomorrow until Monday at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and from Tuesday until April 3 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Admission is free. For the schedule and other details, see www.facebook.com/SalayaDoc.