Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Thailand Bans Local Documentary ‘Boundary’

The Thai government says director Nontawat Numbenchapol’s film, which premiered at the 2012 Berlinale, is "a threat to national security and international relations.”
Thai director Nontawat Numbenchapol’s independent documentary Boundary appears to have pushed one.
The Thai government announced a countrywide ban on the film Tuesday, saying its content is "a threat to national security and international relations.”

A modestly budgeted art-house doc, Boundary premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February. The film begins with footage of the so-called “red shirt” political protests that paralyzed Bangkok in 2011 and resulted in an armed standoff and the deaths of nearly 100 people. Nontawat then zeros in on one of the soldiers involved in the dispute and follows him to his hometown along the Thailand-Cambodia border, an area that has long been the focus of an occasionally violent border dispute between the two countries.