Showing 1 - 10 of 1,254
Southern scars
Oped, Postbag, Published on 18/10/2025
» Re: "Beneath Tak Bai's calm, scars remain", (Opinion, Oct 15). The Bangkok Post deserves praise for having columnist Kong Rithdee remind the nation of the scars and injustices experienced in the South during the Thaksin regime under Gen Pisal Wattanawongkrit, the Fourth Army regional commander in 2004. He also wrote about notorious cases of impunity and the rise of southern youth in joining secessionist groups.
Beneath Tak Bai's calm, scars remain
News, Published on 15/10/2025
» 'I went out after dark to help my friend. Luckily, his phone still worked when he called. On the way from my house, there were corpses floating in the water, face down, shot dead. I'm sure there were more deaths than what they reported. The sound of gunfire kept going late into the night. I remember earlier that day, when the soldiers opened fire, I'd seen people's heads blown to bits as I was running home. I'd never forget what I saw."
Here's to all the useful ghosts of our history
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/08/2025
» Ghosts are useful because they remind us of the unresolved, the unsettled, the unfinished -- in life, love, politics, or history. The film of the moment hitches onto that idea and takes it far, as far as the Cannes Film Festival, and now it has been picked as Thailand's representative for the Oscars.
Journalism is the first victim in a conflict
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/07/2025
» In times of chaos, to call for calm seems naïve. "Imagine there's no countries." Sure, John, I know your utopianism was well-intended, but try telling that to the blood-hounding jingoists running rampant online in Cambodia and Thailand.
When films speak louder than missiles
Oped, Published on 26/06/2025
» Jafar Panahi tells it as he sees it: "An attack on my homeland, Iran, is in no way acceptable," the Iranian filmmaker wrote on Instagram last week. "Israel has violated Iran and should be tried in an international trial as a war aggressor."
Cinema of resistance wins at Cannes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/05/2025
» In a year full of richly textured stories about female trauma and painful personal growth, the Cannes jury, led by Juliette Binoche, took the noble route and gave the Palme d'Or to the most political film in the 22-title competition.
Thai film ‘A Useful Ghost’ wins Cannes prize
Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2025
» CANNES — The Thai film Pee Chai Dai Ka (A Useful Ghost) has won the Grand Prix at Critics’ Week, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Thai film to ever win the prize.
The long and brutal voyage
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2025
» In 1521, when his galleon finally cut through the treacherous Pacific Ocean, when the island of Cebu first appeared in his sight at the edge of the horizon, when its slender coconut trees and thatched huts and maybe its half-naked inhabitants came into view, when he lays eyes on all of these, what went through the mind of Ferdinand Magellan?
Agents of change
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/05/2025
» Awash with saturated colour and steeped in Brazil's history of authoritarianism, Kleber Mendoça Filho's The Secret Agent has emerged as a serious contender for the Palme d'Or. A former film critic, programmer and now a leading voice in Brazilian cinema, Mendoça Filho's fourth feature -- and his third in Cannes Competition -- is a political thriller, a tribute to disappeared dissidents, and a deft ode to the way memory is passed through time and technology.
A Useful Ghost fills a vacuum at Cannes
Life, Published on 19/05/2025
» What begins as comedy sometimes ends as horror. Or maybe: What begins as comedy sometimes ends as tragicomedy. Last Saturday, writer-director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke presented Pee Chai Dai Kha (A Useful Ghost) at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, the sole Thai title in the festival.