The Purple Kingdom

A young soldier stationed in the troubled southern Thai region is on his annual leave to his village in northern Thailand. Upon his return, he finds out that his girlfriend has now settled down with a new Western lover. Blaming the situation on the military career he has chosen for himself, he starts to get angry with her and everyone around him. His sister reminds him that forgiveness is not as difficult as he imagines, but that it has to start from within.

Masterfully filmed, atmospheric moment. The period of mourning comes to an end at a temple-like funeral chapel. The final visitors are not mourners, but want to buy off their guilt. The mother wants to see a real confession. And money. The intense emotionality the death of a child evokes is, as it were, sculpted in space while the tension between the mother and the visitors is captured more subliminally by a roving camera.

The Truth Be Told is an epic-scale documentary that follows three and half years in the life of Supinya, a media activist who was sued by the Shin Corporation for stating that the company had benefited from the policies of the administration of Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family owned the company. The documentary is snapshot of a turbulent period in Thai politics, from the Thaksin years, the anti-Thaksin backlash that arose after Thaksin sold his share in Shin to Singapore's Temasek Holdings, and the military coup that ousted Thaksin.

This short movie that is maybe not a documentary is made by the filmmaker in memory of the extrajudicial killing of young Lahu activist Chaiyapoom PASAE. She knew the young Lahu boy through a workshop she gave some years before he was killed. A tribute to a young aspiring filmmaker and his Lahu language and culture.

Laila sets out on a road trip to Pattani, one of the three southernmost Thai provinces, to visit her long-lost aunt. Her brother and his friend are tagging along. The three take off from Bangkok during a time when the capital is going through radical conflict. Being from the city has prevented them from realizing much about the violent outbreaks that have been occurring around Pattani for many years. Meeting a suspicious soldier sent to fight the insurgents, the four head together to find Laila's aunt, where the route is leading them to discover a land stranger than that they are familiar with.

Two women face one another. Two worlds touch. Past and presence. The young woman warns the older woman. Something terrible will happen. The older woman massages the general. She knows the general’s secret. She wanders through empty rooms. Rooms coated with a patina of secrecy. The warning hangs in the air. The young woman doesn’t have a chance. Towira’s films are characterised by a fusion of stylisation and realism. She holds a mirror to reality, a mirror that is closely related to the country’s history.

One of three films commissioned by the Jeonju International Film Festival in 2005. A couple escaped their family to look for a spiritual tree in the jungle. There is a song at night, a song that spoke about an innocent idea of love and a quest for happiness. Worldly Desires is an experimental project where I invited a filmmaker friend, Pimpaka Towira, to shoot the love story by day and the song by night. The story, Deep Red Bloody Night, was written by my assistant who wanted to reprise a forbidden love story in a more romantic time in the past. I picked a pop song, Will I be Lucky? to convey a sense of guiltless freedom one feels when being hit by love. The video is a little simulation of manners, dedicated to the memories of filmmaking in the jungle during the year 2001-2005. -Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The film follows the life of Sipang (Nicole Theriault), an urbane and self-confident Bangkok woman whose husband disappears after he receives a mysterious phone call on the night of their wedding. She begins to search for him with the help of his elder brother Chatchai (Pongpat Wachirabunjong) and his introverted wife Busaba (Siriyakone Pukkavesa), a traditional housewife totally dependent on her dominating husband. During the search, Sipang and Busaba, who are worlds apart in outlook, grow increasingly close and explore the value of life, love and devotion as women living in contemporary Thai society.

A man is depressed after returning from a political protest.