“Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers’s Krabi, 2562 has a diaphanous flutter and quicksilver evasiveness.” Nick Pinkerton, Sight & Sound
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.
Screening with
Jai
2007, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand, DCP, 14 minutes
In Thai with English subtitles
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.
About the Artists
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.
Ben Rivers is an artist and filmmaker. His works are held in public and private collections including Tate Gallery, London; Ville de Genève, Genève; Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg; FRAC Ile de France, Paris; and National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Selected solo exhibitions include Urthworks, Hestercombe Gallery, Somerset (2019); Phantoms, Triennale, Milan (2017); Urth, The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2016); Islands, Kunstverein of Hamburg (2016); The Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, Artangel, London and Whitworth Museum, Manchester (2016); and Earth Needs More Magicians, Camden Arts Centre, London (2015). Awards include the EYE Art Film Prize, Netherlands; FIPRESCI International Critics Prize, 68th Venice Film Festival; Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel 42; Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University; and Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists (2010).
Related Event:
Anocha Suwichakornpong, Tulapop Saenjaroen, and Pom Bunsermvicha in Conversation with Melika Bass
Friday, October 22, 6:00 p.m.
Virtual Event
Closed captions available
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