The power of documentaries
LONG-SUPPRESSED memories will surge to the surface in the sixth Salaya International Documentary Film Festival, which runs from March 26 to April 3 at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.
The festival’s programmes include “Discovery”, which has a wide selection of hard-hitting documentaries from Asia and elsewhere, “Sense and Sensibility”, which has documentaries made by female directors, and the Asean Documentary Competition.
There will also be selections from “Power of Asian Cinema”, a documentary series produced by the Korean Broadcasting System and the Busan International Film Festival. Among the episodes to be screened will be “The Scala”, a 50-minute piece by Thai filmmaker Aditya Assarat, who took his cameras inside Bangkok’s threatened Scala theatre for what he believes will be one last look around.
“At the Scala, time has stood still,” Aditya says in his film’s description. “The cinema is still run by many of the same staff who have been there from the beginning. It is now the last remaining stand-alone cinema left in Bangkok. And soon, its time will come to an end too.”
A major highlight will be “The Memory of Justice”, a 1976 film that looked at wartime atrocities, by the Germans in World War II, and by the Americans in Vietnam. The film, running 278 minutes, was recently restored and presented at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
And another marathon screening will be “Homeland: Iraq Year Zero”. The award-winning chronicle of everyday life in Iraq before and after the US invasion, runs 334 minutes and will be presented in its entirety.
For more details, check Fapot.org or www.Facebook.com/SalayaDoc.
