Shifting Shadows of Identity, an evening of short films from different regions of Thailand, presents new perspectives on Thai national identity. The event is organised by The Basement—an underground collective of emerging visual artists—and the films have been selected by Srinakharinwirot, Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Silpakorn, and Bangkok university film clubs. The screening will be held on 21st February, on the rooftop of the Apron Bar in Bangkok, and is taking place alongside the bar’s Expanding Pecel Lele programme celebrating Indonesian culture, as part of Bangkok Design Week 2025 (which runs from 8th to 23rd February).
Possathorn Watcharapanit’s Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway is one of the highlights of Shifting Shadows of Identity. Possathorn films himself with a selfie stick as he jogs around his home town, the black-and-white images accompanied by a voiceover from the director. Slowly, another image begins to emerge, gradually dissolving into view: footage of anti-government protesters gathered around a burning brazier. This scene (filmed by Voice TV) eventually replaces Possathorn’s selfie shot, and the film ends with a caption heralding the “flame of the birth of a new era.” (Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway was previously shown in the Angry Young Citizen strand of Wildtype 2022.)
Possathorn Watcharapanit’s Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway is one of the highlights of Shifting Shadows of Identity. Possathorn films himself with a selfie stick as he jogs around his home town, the black-and-white images accompanied by a voiceover from the director. Slowly, another image begins to emerge, gradually dissolving into view: footage of anti-government protesters gathered around a burning brazier. This scene (filmed by Voice TV) eventually replaces Possathorn’s selfie shot, and the film ends with a caption heralding the “flame of the birth of a new era.” (Selfie of My Run to My Return from Runaway was previously shown in the Angry Young Citizen strand of Wildtype 2022.)
Shifting Shadows of Identity will conclude with an early video piece by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Haunted Houses (บ้านผีปอบ). A documentary in which villagers perform lakorn scripts, the film plays on the link between ‘media’ and ‘medium’: the Thai collective fascination with both mass entertainment (TV soap operas) and the spirit world. (Haunted Houses was previously shown at Alliance Française in 2017, and at the Jim Thompson Art Center in 2011.)