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December 05, 2006

Petition to Save Thai Cinema

Poster for Thon (Tone) directed by Piak Poster - 1970

Today is a national holiday, the 79th birthday of the King of Thailand. It is also a good day to make others aware of a petition to preserve Thai film that is linked at the Thai Cinema website. You can also click here to directly access the petition.

One might think with a filmmaker in the Royal Family, that the issues regarding film preservation and creating a national databank would have been resolved. What I've have discovered is that I could have had an easier time seeing older Thai films in France. In terms of getting information on older Thai films, IMDb is at this time very inadequate.

I am hoping that a lot more people sign the petition so that it is understood that the preservation of Thai film is of importance globally, and not just of a few people in Thailand. Among those who have already signed are filmmakers Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thai film critic Kong Rithdee of the Bangkok Post, film critic and fellow blogger Noel Vera, and Thai film scholar Anchalee Chaiworaporn. I encourage readers to not only sign the petition but to pass the information on to others.

As one would say in Thailand, "Kup Kun Ka" (Thank You).

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at December 5, 2006 10:00 AM