ARE WE THERE YET?
(in production)
As a little boy,
I always asked my parents this question every time I traveled with them.
As a young man, I still ask myself this question everyday.
“Am I there yet?”
“Are we there yet?”
(drawing by Phim Umari)
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THE ACT OF REPEATING AS A BASIC LIFE LEARNING
แบบเรียนชีวิตพื้นฐาน : ปฏิบัติตาม (ฺBab Rean Chee Wit Peun Tan Pa Ti But Tam)
2008 / silent / black & white / fiction-experimental /3.45 minutes
Details coming soon.
DISEASES AND A HUNDRED YEAR PERIOD
โรคร้ายในรอบหนึ่งร้อยปี (Roke Rai Nai Rob Neung Roi Phee)
2008 / sound / colour /experimental /20 minutes
"Syndromes and a Century" by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a film that I worked on as a second assistant director, was censored in Thailand. This short is my response to the situation.
Using blown-up, fractured images from the six banned scenes
in "Syndromes and a Century," the film acts as a report on the absurdity of
this censorship while ironically exploring the fragmented history of Thailand.
YESTERDAY
เมื่อวาน (Muer Wan)
2008 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental /13 minutes
Pu had to finish her design before the deadline. Two gave Pu his suggestions. Oh wanted to quit her waitressing job but couldn't. Neung tried to comfort Oh. Four Thai students in California, USA, were about to head out in the evening of yesterday.
The film is a reconstruction of a glimpse of a day. The filmmaker and his four cast members interweave their memories and, together, recreate their free-flowing narratives and impressions to celebrate a time they once shared.
Festivals
2008 The 12th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand (in competition)
2008 "Project 6", Bangkok-Phuket-Chiangmai, Thailand
PHYSICAL THERAPY
2007 / sound / colour /experimental /film /1 minute
Cast
Brigid McCaffrey
Brigid finds herself in the desert.
Physical Therapy is the filmstrip with the spaces between
the human and the landscape, strokes of movements amid
the earth and the sky, and the dance of lights and shadows.
Festivals
2008 The 12th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
LANDSCAPE 101 01 1101 01...
2007 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 28 minutes
Cast
James Benning and friends
A home video-style recording brings the viewers to a field trip
to see landscapes with James Benning and his students, and shows
how the filmmaker is trying to capture a burnt forest with
his digital equipment. Gradually, through digital manipulations
from both shooting and editing, the film becomes a lost voyage
into a mysterious digitalized forest.
Director's statement
James Benning, a landscape filmmaker and teacher, takes his students on a tour to one of his favorite spots. Film students bring their camera along with them. With an experienced filmmaker and aspiring young ones hoping to come up with their own landscape films, the trip itself enthralls me.
Landscape 101 01 1101 01... is a film about filmmaking. The film shows the process from location scouting, shooting and leaving the location. Though not in a behind-the-scene fashion with busy working crew on a movie set, the film reveals the process through the filmmaker's perception from the look of the very camera that recording the film. Instead of showing just the final already-thought-through images, the film uncovers the practice of looking for the right scene, framing, focus, and exposure. The experiments, mistakes, and time being spent, are also evident. Brightness and darkness are being generated through digital equipment. The act of filmmaking in progress becomes the narration in itself.
Overall, the film is shot in a home video style. Time is linear. Only in the middle part where the act of editing becomes more prominent as the film start repeating some images. Time gradually becomes ambiguous. The space itself also becomes ambiguous as the forest becomes fragmented by the scope of the shots. The reality is now fully manipulated with the decision of shooting out of focus and underexposed. We are now lost and trapped in a created dark digitalize forest. This part is my "landscape film", placed between the beginning and the end, which are "the making of a landscape film".
Festivals
2008 The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Thailand
8,241.46 MILES AWAY FROM HOME
2006 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 6 minutes
Crew
Jung-Min Choi, Brigid McCaffrey
8,241.46 miles is the distance from my home in Thailand
to my place in the US. The film is my fading memories of a long
journey from the homeland. An American night is a Thai morning.
Yesterday is today on the other side of the world.
Festivals
2008 The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Thailand
NAOKO IS TRYING TO TEACH ME HOW TO MAKE "TONKATSU" IN 1 MINUTE
2006 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 1 minute
Cast
Naoko Tasaka
This is a short video about culture, how two of
the most common cultural things, “language" and "food”,
can become such struggles.
Philosophy, theory, and politics?
It's hard enough just to talk about our favorite food!
Festivals
2008 "Project 6", Bangkok-Phuket-Chiangmai, Thailand
2008 The 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Thailand
2007 Root & Culture gallery, Chicago, USA
2007 "Confronting Paradise", The Tank, NY, USA
2007 REDCAT: selected in CalArts School of Film/Video Showcase 2007, CA, USA
ABC
2006 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 3 minutes
Co-director: Nika Shek
As a part of CITYZOOMS project, Nika Shek and I
went to Hannover, Germany, and recorded a video diary
of what we saw. Three screens were our eyes and impressions.
ABC is a city portrait, a tribute to the people and the streets
that passed through our lives in that short period of time.
Festivals
2006 CITYZOOMS:Hannover, Germany
ANDAMAN
2005 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 17 minutes
Cast & Crew
Assistant Director : Nok Paksanavin
Starring : Nanthawut Songrak as himself
A short trip in a short time to the southern sea of Thailand. Little groups of lives gather around with different purposes and backgrounds. Today and yesterday might not be the same, but isn't the sea still captivating?
Director's statement
This film was shot in Phuket and Pang-nga in the Southern region of Thailand as a part of the one-year commemoration project of the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy. I went to the area where the Tsunami once hit and was overwhelmingly inspired by the people (the localsand the tourist) at the location. I talked to them, asking them about the lives before and after the tragedy, how things have changed and how they coped with it. I found that, despite the destruction, their spirits were strong. The tourist, knowing the beaches may not be as beautiful as before, still chose to come here just to support the locals. I was touched by their hospitalities and wanted to capture their faces in this film as a memorial.
The sea itself was beautiful. It has changed but still was fascinating as ever. When I looked at it and saw its calmness, it gave me a chill inside, knowing that it contained the power- the power of nature that is so strong that we, human, cannot compare.
I intended to capture the feelings toward the people I met and the sea I experienced. The film is my little memo of this little trip I made - just to remember what it was like one year after that devastating tragedy. The film was made possible by the supports of "The Office of Contemporary Art & Culture" and "Ministry of Culture" of Thailand.
Festivals
2006 Vision du Reel Festival, Nyon, Switzerland
2006 The 7th International DARKLIGHT Festival, Ireland
2006 The 7th Busan Asian Short Film Festival, South Korea
2006 REDCAT: Bangkok Democrazy, CA, USA
2005 The 4th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
2005 The 3rd World Film of Bangkok 2005, Thailand
Selected Review
"Another short that sacrifices the live audio, but instead of going silent, it substitutes the sound of surf and waves as the camera looks around at the island. You get a sense of a Phuket, still recovering after the tsunami. The beaches are a bit empty and lonely feeling. There are some tourists and locals making living from the tourist trade, and the camera stops to talk to them. Their lips are moving but you can't hear what they are saying. Just the sound of waves.
Then a rainstorm kicks up and the sound ratchets up. It made me jump. A mini tsunami on film. In a headline on its story previewing these films yesterday, the English-language ThaiDay said: "News crews showed us what the tsunami looked like. Now, filmmakers show us what it felt like." Especially in Andaman's case, this is dead-on accurate."
/ Wise Kwai, Thai Film Journal
"Through our knowledge of the disaster, ordinary images of a short trip to an island are tinted with a subtle shade of dread and sorrow."
/ Vision du Reel Festival 2006, Nyon, Switzerland
BANGKOK IN THE EVENING
กรุงเทพฯตอนเย็นๆ (Krung Thep Ton Yen Yen)
2005 / sound / colour /documentary-experimental / 16 minutes
Cast & Crew
Camera: Nitiphong Thintupthai, Prinn Vadhanavira, Virapol Phdungchevit,
Zart Tancharoern, Thunska Punsittivorkul, Sompot Chidgasornpongse
Bangkok, the city where everything is moving and changing fast, where all activities happen concurrently and continuously, there's still a time, in the evening, when people and everything seem to stop, when the forward motion comes to a pause and everyone seems to leave the world behind.
"Bangkok In The Evening" was shot in different angles on various locations around Bangkok, only 40 seconds a day, using 6 cameramen. Some view the film as a fascinating sight to look at. Some say it's both a requiem and a love serenade for Bangkok. Some say it forces Thai audiences the look at our routine in a new perspective.
Festivals
2006 Cityzoms:Hannover, Germany
2006 Curtas Vila do Conde - International Film Festival, Protugal
2006 REC ROOM : Videotage, Hong Kong
2006 REDCAT: Bangkok Democrazy, CA, USA
2006 Digital Film Show Case at Siam Paragon, Thailand
2005 The 4th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
2005 Movie Inspirations, Bangkok, Thailand
2005 Re-write the City, Bangkok, Thailand
2005 In Between Art Project, Thailand
TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
ลอยฟ้า (Loy Fah)
2004 / silent - sound / documentary - experimental / 11 minutes
Crew
Co-Writer: Panu Trivej
Camera: Nitipong Thinthupthai
"To infinity and beyond" combines documentary reels with fictional narratives. The film consists of two parts made up of the same footages but told from a different, yet related, perspective. It captures the activities of the villagers in a Thai ceremonial tradition called "Boon Bung Fai." The objective of the ceremony, though quite forgotten, was to worship the sky and beg for the rain. The film showcases a crash of documentary and fiction; sights and sound; folk tale and the modern day news reporting, as well as relationships between man and nature, earth and sky ,reality and dream, west and east, and most importantly, the past and the present that will lead us to the future.
I considered myself a city boy. I lived my life the way other Bangkokian teenagers did-- carefree, fast-paced and westernized. I didn't know many stories behind the Thai culture or the Thai traditions that we were trying hard to preserve. I was amazed by how we managed to combine our culture with others' even though they're so different. You can see a temple next to a big department store, a night club close to a kindergarten school, Bangkok is like a big crash.
I made this film because I was fascinated by a ceremony that Jarn villagers (in Surin, a province in the northeast of Thailand) held. It's one of the rare evidences that we're, Thai people, whatever that means, still survive. I watched it as an outsider as I asked myself ,"What does being Thai really means? What does it take to survive the future and still be Thai ? Are we going in the right direction ? What are we becoming?"
Festivals
2008 Selected in Asian Film Archive (http://www.asianfilmarchive.org)
2008 Southeast Asian Digital Cinema, Singapore
2006 Digital Film Show Case at Siam Paragon, Thailand
2005 The Style Film Fest , Thailand
2005 The 3rd World Film of Bangkok, Thailand
2005 Digital Barcelona Film Festival, Spain
2005 The 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands
(Two Preludes in SEA EYE programme and selected in TV5 Tiger Cub competition)
2004 The 8th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
Selected Review
"An original film, to put it mildly. - A film that is both simple and secretive. Outside in a field, people look up at the sky. The film maker initially doesn't reveal what they are looking at. He also leaves out the sound at first. A text tells the story of Laika, the dog that was shot into space by the Russians in the 1950s. In a second chapter, the images are effectively repeated. Then there is sound, and we learn what the people are looking at, but the way the viewer looks has already changed."
/ The 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands
AUAD DEE
อวดดี
2003 / sound / colour / mocumentary / 10 minutes
Cast
Prinn Vadhanavira as himself
Exhibitions & Festivals
2004 Fat Rama, Thailand
2003 The 7th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
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