Movies that move the heart

 Put on by the NGO Friends Without Borders, the festival opens with “The Assembly of Samurais”, new from “Colors of Our Hearts” director Supamok Silarak. “Samurais” is a semi-documentary following the journey of a young Lahu and his experiences making his first movie.

Another special screening will be Pimpaka Towira’s “My Father”, which won the Special Jury Prize at last year’s Vladivostok International Film Festival. It’s about the master of a rural train station who loses his job over a letter he wrote demanding justice. He then heads to Bangkok and joins a protest rally.

There’s also “Frame” by Aroonakorn Pick, a 22-year old CMU student. It aims to question the “frame” we’re living in.

The closing title will be the Chiang Mai premiere of “Enemies of the People”, the documentary by Cambodian journalist Thet Sambath and co-director Rob Lemkin about Sambath’s decade-long effort to gain the trust of the Khmer Rouge’s Brother No 2, Nuon Chea.

Music, art and dance are featured outdoors, in a barbed-wire compound, just so the audience can get the feeling of what it’s like to be confined to a refugee camp. Inside will be a handicraft market and ethnic food, along with folk music, jazz and Burmese opera. 

“Assembly of Samurais” is also a theme of the festival, with the “samurais” being students and young filmmakers, among them Hmong, Lahu and Karen. Their short movies are featured in a competition. Issues include freedom, equality, statelessness, indigenous peoples, refugees, migrants, farmers, dams, gender and politics, addressed in many genres, including documentaries, dramas, comedies and romance. 

 

Here’s the line-up:

 

* “Uau-Jao” by Pranpriya Kamchadpai – Made by students at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Lad Krabang and inspired by a song of the same name, it’s about a city man who teaches Hmong children. A new government policy threatens his little school with closure.

* “Flesh and Blood” by Taviras Amatyakul – This short by a junior director of commercial film at Maison Film and Production in Bangkok is dedicated to those who lost loved ones during the bloody May 2010 incident in Bangkok. It’s about two brothers who walk on opposite ideological paths.

* “The Farmer” by Natpakal Khemkao – This story, told by a director who is a farmer’s son, is about a farmer trapped in the vicious circle of debt.

l “Pre-attitude” by Panu Saeng-xuto – Three “misters” – a village headman, a soldier and a Muslim student – lead happy lives as “misses”. It received Young Thai Artist Award 2010 from the Siam Cement Foundation.

* “Pals Beyond Borders” by Tanupong Polpaiboon – Boys from different ethnic backgrounds need to prove their friendship before their parents can accept it. It’s made by a student director from the Mae Sai-Burma border and his friends.

* “Tamula” by Saw Day Day – His girlfriend decides to seek freedom in another country while his grandfather wants to return to his homeland in Karen State. But Tamula, a young refugee, “flies” out of the refugee camp’s barbed-wire fence with just his imagination – by painting. It’s made by a young Karen director from Mae Sot.

l “The Six Principles” by Abhichon Rattanapayon – The principles declared by the People’s Party in the 1932 revolution have been forgotten and undermined in the past 78 years.

l “A Comb and a Buckle” by Ja Bue – The 17-year-old Lahu filmmaker looks at a day in the life of a stateless mother and her son.

l “The First Human Couple in the Boundless Narrative” by Attawut Bunyuang – He needs to get away from the truth he’s been suffering with. Yet his dream leaves him naked in front of all strangers. The short is by a fine-arts student whose inspirations stem from a young man of the mountain and memories of an ethnic community.

* “3 Gens” by Panu Saeng-xuto – Views on politics are expressed by three generations.

* “Ja Daw’s Choices” by Mo Tha – This romance is inspired by true stories from border areas. A young man tries to find a dowry to marry the girl he loves, but choices are limited for a man denied citizenship. It’s by a young Lahu director seeking to share stories about his “forgotten” people.

* “The 110th Year of Pridi Banomyong” by Sorayos Prapapant – The world keeps changing, and so does democracy. The documentary celebrates the life and work of the controversial premier through a stage play and the political atmosphere of 2010.

* “When the Sky’s Colour Changes” by Insree Khampeepanyakul – The comedy by a Hmong director is about a new deputy district chief who, on the way to his new post in the mountains, happens to travel through time into the year 2460, where city folks have become refugees.

* “The Dam” by Nattan Krungsri – Whenever the flood covers the central Thailand, the campaign for the Kang Sue Ten Dam resumes. A young man who has long fought to maintain his home and the last golden teak forest is so exhausted that he might not rejoin the endless fight. It’s by a filmmaker from Phrae’s Kosai Nakorn Youth Group.

* “Jabo Means the Man of Fortune” by Maitree Chamroensuksakul – The Lahu director offers a fact-based drama about tragedy in a mountain village, where Jabo tries desperately to save his family by going to Malaysia for work.

 

PENNED UP

The Fly Beyond the Barbwire Fence Festival runs from next Thursday until April 1 at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum.

Screenings will be from 4.30 to 8.30pm next Thursday and Friday and from 11am to 5.15pm on March 31 and April 1.

Check the FFFest Facebook page for more information.