Special relationships

Deeply personal relationships were a common thread running through many of the prize-winning entries in the 19th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, which wrapped up on Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

The festival’s top prize for general filmmakers, the RD Pestonji Award, went to “After Image” by Patana Chirawong. Full of warmth and humour, “After Image” was about an elderly gay man contacting his university crush, a straight guy who years ago had promised to take him on a date if he reached the age of 70. They meet at an archaeology dig for dinosaur fossils. The promise of youth has faded away, and these old fellows are in touch with a past that is older than either can remember. A shadowy figure of a brontosaurus ambles by.

Runner-up winners were “Neither Here Nor There” by Skan Aryurapong, which was a succinct portrait of a wheelchair-bound man and his caretaker/lover, while “Motherland” dealt with a young pregnant woman seeking advice from a co-worker at a factory.

And a special mention went to Hta Kwa’s “Our Footprints”, which looks at the continuing struggles of Thailand’s indigenous people to continue their traditional ways of life in the forest. The disappearance of Karen activist Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen looms in the backdrop.

New to the festival this year is an additional cash prize, free equipment rental and use of a production crew to the top-prize winner of the RD Pestonji Award from VS Service, a company that has long been involved with providing services to foreign movie productions.

Established in 1985 with a single generator to hire out to film productions, among VS Service’s early clients was Santa Film, a production services firm run by a son of RD Pestonji, who is regarded as Thailand’s first auteur filmmaker.

 

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