Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles this unprecedented moment in time, and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers.
It (segment "Song of the City")
Cuatro directores tailandeses narran, en este filme omnibus, cómo ven el futuro de su país. Así, vemos sendas piezas en las que el futuro se mezcla con la crítica a la situación política de Tailandia. Aditya Assarat filma a un joven soldado en una galería de arte, y transmite de forma sutil el estado de represión actual. Wisit Sasanatieng firma una fábula futurista poblada de hombres-gato. El artista visual Chulayarnnon Siriphol llena la pantalla de colores en una distopía animada. Y el maestro Apichatpong Weerasethakul filma con sosiego a un hombre que habla de máquinas del sueño en una plaza presidida por un monumento patrio.
ABLAZE premiered at the 27th Singapore Film Festival, November 24, 2016
Itt
"Fever Room" features Jenjira (Jen) and Banlop (Itt), two of Apichatpong’s regular actors who also appear in his film, "Cemetery of Splendour". Like the film, this projection-performance presents the layers of reality and fantasy. Apichatpong fuses his memories with the actors’ and fictionalises the narrative. Here the people takes refuge in dreams while their land is on a brink of collapse, echoing Thailand’s present state of military dictatorship.
Itt
Una solitaria ama de casa de mediana edad atiende a un soldado con la enfermedad del sueño, cayendo en alucinaciones que desencadenan en sueños extraños, fantasmas y romances.
This film depicts Bunleua Sulilat’s temple/sculpture garden 'Sala Keoku', located in northern Thailand. Passages of blackness sporadically dissolve under the fitful internal illumination of sparklers, which light up to reveal Sulilat’s unorthodox temple populated with a fantastical concrete menagerie of beasts and figures; the sculptures range from the broad, whale-like contours of a frog’s face, to a cavalcade of dogs on mopeds, to a pair of skeletons partially embracing as if sitting for a double portrait. These images are interspersed with those of an older Thai couple mysteriously wandering around the temple like wraiths, the woman’s plodding progress hampered by the use of crutches.
Supayong
Setia, an Indonesian maid, and Supayong, a construction worker from Thailand, are two illegal foreign laborers who drift between Taipei and Taoyuan while looking for job opportunities. The two foreigners rely on each other and share the burden of their loneliness among the hustle and bustle of a glittering city. They strive for survival while developing a gentle relationship full of humor, using a language that both are still awkward with: Chinese, the language of their host country.
Director
Cursed Hair" tells about the production of a reality program in a mystery house that makes all participants and crew members experience unexplainable frights. The ex-owner was a lady who has a weird craving for hair. As days pass by, her craving for hair worsens, now she craves the flesh of the scalp. Her intolerable husband decides to kill her and follow by commiting suicide. However, after her death, her soul is still in the house. After realizing the truth, everyone wants to get out of this house, but how many of them can escape alive?
Keng
Un romance de temática gay entre un soldado (Lomnoi) y un chico de campo Tong, en medio de una leyenda popular tailandesa que de un chamán que es capaz de cambiar de forma.
