INTERNATIONAL

ASIA/PACIFIC
RoundAbout
THOMAS SCHMID
THAI COURT REAFFIRMS
BAN ON GAY FILM
Thailand’s Administrative
Court on Dec. 25 ruled that the
ban imposed by the country’s
National Film Board in 2010 on
local gay-themed movie Insects
in the Backyard was lawful and to
be upheld. The ruling came as
a surprise, as one of the judges
presiding over the case had only
in early December recommended
during a preliminary hearing that
the ban be revoked.
The court said in its ruling
that Insects in the Backyard would
continue to be banned primarily
because of a brief scene depicting
graphic sexual intercourse,
which violates Section 287 of the
Criminal Cod e which prohibits
“content that has a negative
impact on public morality and
social decency.” However, the
judges also ruled that the movie
could be screened if the offensive
scene were to be cut. But even
then, the fi lm would have to be
rated 20+, meaning it could only
be shown to audiences aged 20
and older.
Insects in the Backyard tells the
story of a transvestite father who
raises a teenage son and daughter
on his own. Both children have
a confused sense of their own
sexualities and eventually enter
the commercial sex industry. The
scene in question is merely three
seconds long and shows the father
watching a gay pornographic movie
on his home TV set.
Director Tanwarin Sukhapisit
fi led a lawsuit with the Administrative
Court when her movie
was fi rst banned by the National
Film Board in 2010, arguing that
the ban restricted her freedom
of expression. Tanwarin, who is
a transgender person herself and
plays the character of the father,
has passionately defended her fi lm
throughout the case proceedings.
“The fi lm is meant to talk about
family problems and mostly lessons
learned from my own experiences.
It doesn’t intend to cast a
negative light on the country,” she
was quoted by local news media in
early December after one of the
judges had reportedly recommended
lifting the ban.
Tanwarin said she accepted
the ruling and won’t appeal. But in
an interview with Kong Rithdee,
the highly respected fi lm critic
of local newspaper Bangkok Post,
she also highlighted interpretation
problems brought on by Thailand’s
vaguely worded Film Act of 2008
and the apparently “arbitrary”
censorship powers executed
by the National Film Board, a
body supervised by the Ministry
of Culture. “Back in 2010, the
INSECTS IN THE BACKYARD
censors couldn’t tell me exactly
why they banned my movie. They
mentioned underage prostitution,
they mentioned the penis shots,
they mentioned the ‘bad [morality]
examples.’ They said many things,
but were very vague. They were
unable to tell me what I had to cut
so the fi lm would pass,” she told
Rithdee. “Now the court has told
me which shot was the problem–
the porn image on the TV screen–
and I can accept that.”
Tanwarin is the fi rst local fi lmmaker
ever to having used a legal
channel in an effort to attempt lifting
a fi lm ban since Thailand’s Film
Act was introduced in 2008. A
number of local and international
movies have been banned since
that time.
SINGAPORE FILM FEST
WRAPS WITH INDIAN WIN
Indian fi lmmaker Gurvinder
Singh was honored at the recent
26th Singapore International Film
Festival with the top prize in the
Asian Feature Film category, re-
THE FOURTH DIRECTION
60 WWW.FILMJOURNAL.COM
FEBRUARY 2016