By IPS Correspondents
BANGKOK, Oct 6 1998 (IPS)

It was meant to showcase Thailand as a budding venue for international art and culture, but the Bangkok Film Festival brought out the uglier aspects of the “Land of Smiles”movie censorship.

The independently-organised festival (which ran Sep 18-26), was the first of its kind in Thailand and, in terms of participation and audience, was a resounding success. But it was marred by a ban on two entries dubbed “unfit for public consumption”.

The move has sparked off a storm of protest from Thai movie- makers and intellectuals who have called for revision of the country’s antiquated censorship laws.

The films banned from screening were ‘Bugis Street’ about the life of transvestites in a Singapore nightlife area and ‘My Teacher Eats Biscuits’, a satirical tale about the decline of religious institutions by Thai filmmaker Ing K.

The first film was found to be pornographic by Thailand’s National Film Board and ‘My Teacher’ was said to offend “religious sensibilities.” Censors also ruled that a New Zealand entry, ‘Topless Women Talk About Their Lives’ could only be shown if the projectionist put his hand over the lens to block one scene!

Ironically, all three films were screened at the Singapore Film Festival in April without any problems from local officials who have the reputation of being South-east Asia’s strictest moral police. The Bangkok festival, which showed more than 140 entries, concluded with the first prize awarded to ‘Petal’, a Korean film.

Following the action of the censors here, a group calling themselves ‘Khon Rak Nang’ or “Film-lovers”, comprising Thai film producers and academics, wrote to Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai and called for major changes in Thailand’s film- censorship system.

“Censorship during the Bangkok Film Festival earned a lot of criticism, and such censorship has damaged the democratic image of the country. Participants at the festival also raised doubts about freedom of information,” the signatories said. They urged Chuan to amend or cancel the Film Act framed in 1930 and issue a new law more suitable for today’s film industry.

Thai film producers have been calling for a rating system as opposed to the existing practice of cutting out or masking scenes that the censors deem unsuitable for the public. The group also requested a waiver of censorship for films shown at festivals.

A group of academics from leading Bangkok universities issued a separate statement also opposing the way authorities treated films shown at the Bangkok Film Festival.

“It is very discouraging. All of us working on the film would not have spent the amount of time and money involved if we did not care about religion deeply enough,” says Ing K.

Her film ‘My Teacher Eats Biscuits’ exposes the corruption and commercialisation within mainstream Buddhism in Thailand but also reaffirms the essential goodness of all religions.

In the past, Ing K’s movies have aroused conflict with authorities over hard-hitting exposes of Thailand’s ecologically and socially-disastrous promotion of mass tourism. Films like ‘Thailand for Sale’ and the the ‘Green Menace’ about the mushrooming of golf courses around Bangkok won praise abroad, but made many enemies in official circles back home.

Censorship-board member Patamavadee Charuworn, head of Chulalongkorn University’s Department of Motion Pictures and Still Photography, was quoted by Thai media as saying many thought “My Teacher Eats Biscuits” mocked religious beliefs.

An official at the government-run Public Relations Department (PRD) said “only intellectuals” could understand the film.

“Thailand has one of the freest media in South-east Asia but there is still a stifling heavyhandedness among officials who cannot accept the world has changed,” says a local filmmaker.

Till a pro-democracy movement broke the back of Thai military stranglehold over political power in the early nineties, Thailand was ruled by successive military dictatorships since 1932. Using the rising tide of communist movements as a pretext, the military rulers framed laws to suppress democratic dissent and subjected the press to heavy censorship. Though many laws restricting press freedom have been lifted, cinema remains strictly monitored by Thai authorities.

“The Thai film industry, it appears, remains in the age of the dinosaur, well behind its media peers such as print, radio and television. It will take a concerted effort by everyone – film- makers, producers and financiers, the authorities, the public, film schools and their instructors – to prod the Thai film industry forward,” said an editorial in the English language daily ‘The Nation’.

The Thai film industry, vibrant in the sixties and early seventies, has been steadily declining in output due to an influx of bigger budget and slicker movies from Hong Kong and Hollywood.

Domestic film makers complain that apart from commercial reasons, the decline has also been due to creative talent shying away from the industry because of fears of censorship as well as the conservative thinking among older producers. So far for example, in 1998 only six Thai films have been made compared to 32 in 1996 and 113 in 1990.

“As long as the law controls the content of Thai films and is not amended to suit reality, films have no chance of reflecting truth in Thai society,” says Ing K. “So Thai films give no true depiction of Thai lives, and no one is interested in watching them. Thai films cannot compete with foreign films, and all they do is tell light love stories about teenagers.”

Given the controversy over the Bangkok Film Festival, the spotlight is now on what censors will do to a planned gay and lesbian film festival this month. Thai Film Board officials have said that they will not ban the festival, but only “view it to ensure that they were within bounds of Thai morality”.

Ironically, as a visiting Asian filmmaker pointed out, the Thai authorities seem to be obsessed with cracking down on “immorality” on celluloid but doing nothing about it in the real world. Just a few hundred meters away from the site of the Bangkok Film Festival, on busy Sukhumvit Road, are commercial sex establishments flaunting scenes well beyond the imagination of any normal film director.

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