Underplayed Gems

Tongpan (1977)

Tongpan poster
Original title
ทองปาน
Directed by
Euthana Mukdasanit
Genre
docudrama
Country
Thailand
Runtime
1h
Rating
7.4 of 10 from 5 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

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How it feels

The film re-enacts a 1975 seminar on a proposed dam project in Northeast Thailand. It also follows a poor farmer who lost his land to a previous dam and now struggles to survive.

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What happens

Tongpan (Thai: ทองปาน) is a 1976 Thai 16 mm black-and-white docudrama that re-creates a seminar that took place in Northeast Thailand in 1975 to discuss the proposed Pa-Mong Dam on the Mekong. Interwoven are sequences depicting a poor farmer, Tongpan, who had lost his land to another dam some years before, and his struggles to make ends meet. Because of the film's socialist message and suspected communist sympathies of the filmmakers, it was banned by the Thai government. The 63-minute film was released on VCD in Thailand in 2006. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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