Military forced cancellation student movie screening

The military ordered Burapha University students to cancel a movie screening, reasoning that some of the movie content threatens national security.

Last Thursday, a Facebook page called ‘Bangsaenrama’ for a movie festival organised by students of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science of Burapha University in eastern Chonburi Province, revealed that the military had contacted the students to cancel the film screening.

The Bangsaenrama film festival was officially organised students of Burapha University for three years to offer a platform for students from many other universities in Thailand to show their films and other alternative domestic and international films.

This year’s festival programme, which was scheduled to be held from 23-24 April, consisted of 30 films, one of which was ‘Boundary’, a controversial movie directed by a Thai, which offers critical perspectives on the Preah Vihear Temple conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.

According to the movie festival Facebook page, the military told the university that the event organisers must first ask the military and the Ministry of Culture if all the movies are permitted to be shown.

The military first contacted the university on 22 April and specifically asked the organisers to withdraw ‘Boundary’ from the festival programme, saying it contains sensitive content which could harm national security.

The organisers decided to remove the controversial movie and other short films with sensitive political content at the military’s request.

On 23 April, however, the military again contacted the festival organisers and told them to cancel the film screening completely.

Khalid Midam, a lecturer of Music and Performing Arts at Burapha University, said that the military’s action stirred fear in the university.  

“It’s bad that we are a tertiary educational institution and we didn’t let the students decide. We decided for them what’s good and what’s bad. [The military] used this kind of authority to create fear, which succeeded to the point that the students didn’t say anything against it [the military’s action],” said the lecturer.

Nontawat Numbenchapol, the director of ‘Boundary’, said that the military's decision to ban his film and force the cancellation of the film festival altogether was unreasonable.

“If it’s really a threat to national security, for the last two or three years that this film has been shown, the Thai nation would have collapsed by now,” said Nontawat. “I’m a bit confused, the film [Boundary] was screened before and many have already seen it. The Southeast Asian programme of Chiang Mai University just showed the movie two months ago and there was no problem.”

The students and lecturers who organised the event had to reimburse all the money to audiences, producers, and the production team of the cancelled film festival. 

 

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