The Representation of Thailand in Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films
Abstract: In recent years, the rapid rise of Thai films has become an important feature of Asian cinema. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is a Thai director who has allowed Thai cinema to gain international influence. Through approaches from film studies and cultural theory this dissertation examines Apichatpong's films from the perspective of national cinema and post-colonialism theory. His films represent Thailand and gain their own national self-identity in terms of politics, history and religion. As a result, he has become one of the most distinctive artistic voices that represent Asian culture.
Keywords: Asian cinema, Thai cinema, Apichatpong Weerasethul, National cinema, Post-colonialism
Video Essay
(Ongoing research)
"Pirated" Future: Chinese Independent Cinema distributed online(TBD)
Film piracy and film censorship have always been issues in Chinese film industry. Film piracy used to be thought of as a violation to the copyrights of the films. However, because of the publishment of the 2017 film law as well as the outbreak of Covid-19, more and more independent directors use the internet as a way of distributing their films. Online privacy somehow becomes a new way of promoting films and a way of avoiding censorship. Some of these films are very self-reflexive about the film industry in China, while others are short films, sometimes referred as "micro-movies". The boundaries between online videos and short films are becoming more and more blur. Some of the famous examples include Law Future (2015) directed by Kong Dashan, which is a short mockumentary talking about a few young filmmakers being arrested by making arthouse films. Another example would be Jiang Nengjie's documentary Miners, Groom, Pneumoconiosis (2019). The director uploaded his film to the internet himself and sent private messages with the link of his film to anyone who added it in the watchlist. Until now, this documentary has been marked by over 20 thousand viewers. At the end of the film, there were two QR codes of WeChat Pay and Alipay. After a week's circulation on the Internet, more than 2000 netizens contributed more than 60 thousand RMB to the film;s "box office". Another independent film director Chanming Zhiliao (Chen Feng) also uploaded his feature film Road to Film (2019) to an online platform. Like Law Future, Road to Film is also a mockumentary telling the director's semi-autobiographical story, which is a process of a young director full of enthusiasm and ambition trying to find founding for his own film but failed. Independent directors like Jiang Nengjie and Chanming Zhiliao know that their films are not going to be shown in the movie theatres or video-on-demand, so they choose to use online film privacy to share their works. The behaviour of "the directors share the online links of their films for free" is an act for struggling to survive and will more or less win them more attention.
Examining both short films like Law Future and feature-length films like Miners, Groom, Pneumoconiosis and potentially other films as case studies, I would like to explore the concept of independent cinema in China today, by addressing the question: To what degree does online film piracy change the distribution of Chinese independent films? What are some of the current phenomena in film industry reflected in these films? What role does “micro-movies” play in the dialogue of independent cinema and online piracy? Offering close readings of these films and the historical texts about Chinese Independent cinema and pirated culture, I hope to explore the questions above and have a deeper understanding about the current phenomena happening in Chinese film industry today.