Anocha Suwichakornpong: Krabi, 2562 and Jai
Posted by | Amy Beste | Posted on | October 24, 2021
Sunday, October 24, 6:00 p.m.
Theatrical Screening
Gene Siskel Film Center
Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers, Krabi-2562, 2019. Courtesy of the artists and Rediance Films.
Anocha Suwichakornpong’s third feature, made in collaboration with filmmaker Ben Rivers, is a mischievous and delightfully mysterious portrait of the province of Krabi, a stunningly beautiful region in southwestern Thailand under threat by climate change and growing tourism. Fluidly slipping between documentary and fiction, the film follows an enigmatic out-of-towner who introduces herself to the locals under different guises—a market researcher, a location scout, a tourist—as she visits the region’s iconic sites while gathering folklore, geographic data, and old timers’ oral histories before disappearing altogether. When a colleague shows up to track her down, the film introduces a whole new host of characters, shifting between a pop star, commercials director (played by the filmmaker Oliver Laxe), and a prehistoric couple who are seemingly oblivious to the millennia that have passed. Titled after the Thai year in which it was shot, Krabi 2562 is as much a meditation on the region as it is about time, perspective, and filmmaking itself. In Thai and English with English subtitles.
2019, Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers, Thailand / United Kingdom, DCP, 90 minutes
Screening with:
Jai
2007, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand, DCP, 14 minutes
Jai is a factory story slipping between fiction and documentary. Suwichakornpong has often noted that this film served as the genesis for her 2016 feature By the Time It Gets Dark. In Thai with English subtitles.
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ABOUT
Anocha Suwichakornpong is a filmmaker whose work is informed by the socio-political history of Thailand. Her films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York; TIFF Cinematheque, Toronto; Cinéma Moderne, Montreal; and Olhar de Cinema, Brazil. Suwichakornpong received her master of fine arts from Columbia University. In 2006, Suwichakornpong co-founded the production company Electric Eel. In 2017, she co-founded Purin Pictures, an initiative to support Southeast Asian cinema. Between 2018 and 2020, Suwichakornpong was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. In 2019, Suwichakornpong was named a Prince Claus Laureate.
About
Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
