A Wiseman observes

AMONG DOCUMENTARY filmmakers, there is perhaps no greater institution than the man who examines them – Frederick Wiseman.
Since the 1960s, the former law professor has directed nearly four dozen documentaries, mostly about institutions, such as prisons, hospitals, the courts, a state legislature and even a zoo.
His latest work, “At Berkeley”, examines one of America’s top research universities, and it’s the opening entry in the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival, starting next week at the Thai Film Archive and at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Along with Wiseman’s film, there’s also the Asean Documentary Competition, a package of docs from the UK and the Thai premiere of Cambodia’s first foreign-language Oscar nominee, “The Missing Picture”.
“We always want to bring new aspects of documentaries to Thai audiences and hope to encourage Thai documentary filmmakers,” says festival director Chalida Chalida Uabumrungjit. “That’s why we chose ‘At Berkeley’, to showcase the work of Frederick Wiseman.”
Wiseman’s style doesn’t involve interviews, Chalida notes. Instead, he lets the camera roll as his subjects go about their business.
“He does not only capture the place but also the vast human ecology of the university – students, faculty, administrators and workers,” Chalida says.
The film runs four hours, which might seem long, but perhaps it isn’t, considering that Wiseman trimmed that down from more than 250 hours of footage.
Chalida hopes Wiseman’s craftsmanship will inspire Thai filmmakers. Dedicated Thai documentary makers on the current scene include Panu Aree, whose work has shown in previous editions of Salaya Doc, and Uruphong Raksasad, whose award-winning latest effort, “The Songs of Rice”, is the festival’s closing film.
“They approach the traditional ways of making documentaries, but they need more support in order to make the films they really want to make,” Chalida says.
More fine examples of documentary making come from Japan, and this year’s “Director in Focus” – Kazuhiro Soda. Like Wiseman, he is known for his observational style. Two of his films will be featured – 2007’s Peabody Award-winner “Campaign”, covering a heated election in Kawasaki, Japan. There’s also Soda’s latest film, “Campaign 2”. Examining Japanese politics following the March 11, 2011 Fukushima disaster, “Campaign 2” looks at an underdog candidate running in a small local race on an anti-nuclear message.
The British Council boards this year’s festival with a package of four films, among them “Requiem for Detroit”, in which Julien Temple looks at the dystopian ruin of America’s Motor City. Also in America, directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman put forth their “Soundtrack for a Revolution”, chronicling the civil rights struggle through the songs that protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings and in jail cells. “Rough Aunties”, directed by Kim Longinotto, follows the fearless and feisty ladies who care for street children in Durban, South Africa. And, in a story that should resonate with Thai audiences, “Moving to Mars” recounts the journey of two Myanmar families, who, after living for 20 years in a refugee camp in Thailand, are relocated to a place that might as well be another planet – Sheffield.
Hitting closer to home are a trio of special screenings. One is the closing film, “The Songs of Rice”. It is the finale in a trilogy on rural Thailand by the Chiang Rai-born Uruphong, who first offered “Stories from the North” and then “Agrarian Utopia”. His latest work chronicles the lively rituals that accompany rice cultivation in our fair land. Making its Thai premiere in Salaya, “The Songs of Rice” had its bow at this year’s Rotterdam fest, where it won the Fipresci Award from an international jury of critics.
Another award-winner comes from Cambodia, Rithy Panh’s “The Missing Picture”, which won the Un Certain Regard Award at Cannes last year and was the first Cambodian film to be nominated for an Academy Award. In it, the filmmaker continues to probe the painful memories of the Khmer Rouge era by reconstructing missing archival images with the help of clay figures.
And from Thailand, archival footage is found in “Receiving Torpedo Boat”, filmed in 1935 by Luang Kolakarn Jan-Jit, aka Pao Wasuwat. Commissioned by the Royal Thai Navy, the pioneering cameraman follows our brave sailors on their historic journey across the ocean to Italy to take delivery of a new vessel from a shipyard there. The rarely seen footage was added last year to the Culture Ministry’s Registry of Films as National Heritage.
 Made in Asean
 ENTRIES FROM CAMBODIA, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have been selected for this year’s Asean Documentary Competition at the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival.
According to festival programmer Sanchai Chotirosseranee, the seven films were picked from around 60 short and feature-length entries that were vetted by a committee, which aimed to present different types of documentaries “that we want Thai people to see”.
Two of them are by Thai indie filmmakers – Sivaroj Kongsakul and Wichanon Sumumjarn. In “Homeland”, Sivaroj continues on the themes he explored in his semi-autobiographical debut feature, 2010’s family drama “Eternity” (“Tee-Rak”). The 23-minute documentary is about a schoolteacher who, after 36 years of instructing first-grade pupils, hopes to own her own home before she dies.
Wichanon, who made his feature debut with the semi-autobiographical documentary-drama “In April the Following Year There was a Fire”, follows a young Isaan lass as she takes a job as a product presenter in “Pretty Woman Walking Down the Street”.
From Myanmar, Aung Nwai Htway dissects his parents’ marriage in “Behind the Screen”. His folks were film icons in 1960s Myanmar, but today Htway struggles to reconcile those glamorous images with the painful memories of his parents’ divorce.
The Cambodian entry “Red Wedding” looks at a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, which forced some 250,000 women into marriages. Directed by Lida Chan and Guillaume Suon and produced by Rithy Panh, “Red Wedding” tells the story of Sochan, who at the age of 16 was forced into a marriage with a soldier who raped her. After 30 years of silence, she brought her case to the international tribunal in Phnom Penh.
Another Asean neighbour’s past is unearthed in “To Singapore, With Love” by Tan Pin Pin. Her controversial film features interviews with the country’s political exiles.
The past also lingers in the Vietnamese entry, “Mrs Bua’s Carpet”, in which director Duong Mong Thu goes looking for memories and traces of war in Danang.
“Jazz in Love” by Filipino filmmaker Baby Ruth Villarama centres on cross-cultural romance as it looks at a young Filipino named Jazz as he awaits the arrival of his fiance, a middle-aged German man.

 HIT THE DOC
The Salaya International Documentary Film Festival runs from March 22 to 29 at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and from March 25 to 28 and March 30 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
Admission is free. For the schedule, see Facebook.com/SalayaDoc.