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- With its first director now in charge, the upgraded Thai Film Archive aims for an expansion that will make Bangkok a centre of film culture in Southeast Asia28.07.2010
With its first director now in charge, the upgraded Thai Film Archive aims for an expansion that will make Bangkok a centre of film culture in Southeast Asia.
Archivist Dome Sukavong said that of the National Film Archive at its 20th anniversary in September 2004. Now, July 2010, against the most desperate odds and to the amazement of many, especially itself, the archive lives.
And not just living: it's looking, for the first time, towards the genuine prospects of growth, of becoming the claws and fangs in the battle to promote cultural intellect and a symbol of a civilised nation. Few stranger things have happened in this country.
Since its birth in 1984, the Thai Film Archive this month marks its first anniversary as a Public Organisation, a structural upgrading that has given the agency a robust lifeline after it had been a neglected unit in the Department of Fine Arts for 25 years. Former chief archivist Dome _ the mad-haired Don Quixote who believes that cinema is a religion and film archives are temples _ has just been named the first Director of the Thai Film Archive. Dome's quarter-of-a-century-long struggle to preserve the audiovisual heritage of this country has paid off, though only partially, to the humble applause of his supporters in and outside the film community. Now that the first threshold has been crossed, the task awaiting Dome and the archive will be even more challenging than what he has worked so hard to achieve.
''We still have a lot to do,'' said Dome, a native of Narathiwat whose face has represented the struggle of the archive for almost three decades. ''Before, with our limited budget, we focused our work mainly on preserving historical films. Now that we have the ability to expand, we will have to find the balance between preservation work and promotion work _ we will begin showing films and connecting more to the public and sharing our cultural treasure with the world.''
The most urgent issue now is the facility. The Thai Film Archive now operates in a compound of small, ill-equipped buildings in Salaya, including a modest cinema and a film museum. With the possibility of making Thailand a hub of film knowledge in Southeast Asia, Dome is pushing for the construction of a 800-million-baht central facility _ often dubbed Cinematheque in Francophile countries or Film House in others _ that will serve as the heart and brain of the local film culture. The new building, pending approval, will include a cinema, film school, libraries, exhibition space and hospital for ageing celluloid.
''We already have a blueprint, we already have a piece of land,'' says Dome. ''A cinematheque is necessary just as libraries and museums are necessary in any nation. I believe that a Cinematheque _ or Film House, if you prefer _ is a boost to the cultural image of our country. It's a weapon for promoting intelligence and wisdom. When Thailand buys aircraft carriers or fighter jets, they have to be powerful, expensive and formidable because they would send a message to other countries. Likewise with cultural weapons, we have to invest, because it will show the world how we're seriously developing our citizens to become intelligent people.''
One fighter jet, as well all know, costs more than a museum or a Film House, which happens to last much longer than any military muscle. At a time when Thailand is riding on the glory of our Palme d'Or-winning film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and while our commercial cinema has planted a firm foothold in Asean cineplexes, the timing of the Film Archive's expansion and its planned Cinematheque is strategically critical to the attempt to make Bangkok a centre of Southeast Asia's film community.
Even Singapore, whose forward-looking government has pumped a vast amount into the construction of art space, doesn't have a cinematheque, since the Singaporean film industry is too small. Indonesia may produce 100 films a year, but that country's film industry still lacks an international profile. Thus a Thai cinematheque will plant a flag for the Kingdom as a serious player in the Creative-Economy game plan that the government has so championed.
Newly appointed Culture Minister Nipit Inthrasombat inspected the Film Archive office two weeks ago and promised to look into the possibility allocating a budget for the cinematheque. The ministry, whose image is strictly tied to the conservative camp, could pull off a masterstroke that shows both its contemporary outlook as well as a traditional concern for preserving visual heritage in its decision regarding the Film Archive's request.
''We have the materials,'' says Dome. ''Over 25 years we have collected and restored nearly 10,000 movies that serve to tell the social history of this country. It's time to share them with the public. And even though the film industry is often considered a profit-oriented business, what we're doing is a cultural service, and it's the responsibility of the state to make sure that that happens.''
When Dome said in 2004 that the Film Archive was dying, the archivist was plainly stating the obvious. Dome was researching for a book about the history of Thai cinema when he went to the National Archive in 1981 and found out that there were no film department. He then went to the storage room of the State Railway of Thailand, which, as the weird arm of history is often twisted, was the first agency in the country to produce moving images. In 1983, Dome got the support of Unesco and joined an international film archive conference in Sweden. He came back with good news: the long lost footage of King Rama V's royal visit to Europe was being kept in a Swedish archive. Because of the gravity of that news, coupled with the popularity of King Rama V, the government was convinced and decided to found the National Film Archive as a unit (a very small unit) in the Department of Fine Arts. Yet by 2004, the unit was nearly neglected and the paltry annual budget it received was hardly enough to perform its main restoration duty, resulting in piles of decaying 35mm prints and demoralised staff. This, even though the Thai film industry has been enjoying a successful run since the late 1990s.
Campaigning with at least seven different ministers through the past decade, Dome and his staff persevered in their request to transform the archive into a Public Organisation. Progress had been seen, little by little, through successive administrations and finally, the Abhisit-led cabinet approved the Public Organisation status of the archive in June 2009.
''If cinema is a religion, we need a temple, and film archives perform that function,'' Dome says, his solemnity tinged with sparkles of hope. ''Besides entertainment, cinema is a form of wisdom, and the archive can facilitate that. Right now, Thailand has arguably one of the best filmmakers in the world
[when Apichatpong Weerasethakul won the Palme d'Or from Cannes Film Festival], and we should use this opportunity to develop film culture in this country.
''I believe that film must be watched on the big screen, in a collective environment with strangers breathing next to you. You wouldn't want to look at a painting on a postcard, at home by yourself, you need to go the museum to understand what a painting is, and it's the same with the movies. It's time to make a move so people will believe in cinema again.''(Bangkok Post, 28/7/10)
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