Thailand, 2021, 114′
Taiki Sakpisit
Chalad Na SongkhlaManatsanun PhanlerdwongsakulSunida Ratanakorn
A family’s mental state reflects the troubled history of Thailand in Taiki Sakpisit’s doom-laden feature film debut. Sakpisit’s The Mental Traveller featured in IFFR’s 2019 Tiger Short Competition.
The oppression of the student uprisings in the 1970s and the 2006 military coup are the implicit historic anchors for an equal parts fluid and suffocating family chronicle marred by psychological trauma, violence and guilt complexes. On the eve of a shift in political power, a woman is taken to a safe house, sharing a final meal with her husband before he is smuggled abroad. 30 years earlier, Ploy was a young girl in a coma after nearly drowning. Her father, a soldier, has been missing for three years and her mother is recovering from a nervous breakdown. Together with her lover, her husband’s younger brother, she relives the traumas of their youth.
Impending doom and repression pervade monochrome shots of desolate, dilapidated locations with lanterns creating ghostly shadow theatre. The dark soundtrack, minimal cinematic action and slow tempo conjure up a hypnotic state. The characters seem imprisoned in emotional paralysis where past and present meld into a single, endless nightmare. A shadow crosses the sun: is it an omen or will it awaken everyone? (IFFR)
FIPRESCI Award:
A jury of international film journalists from the Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique award the FIPRESCI Award to their standout Tiger Competition title.
Jury: Veronika Zakonjsek, Jihane Bougrine, Salvatore Marfella, Ronald Rovers, Paula Ruiz
Winning film: The Edge of Daybreak by Taiki Sakpisit
Jury report: “For its mysterious atmosphere and rich imagery in depicting trauma and violence, for its capacity of dealing with 40 years of political turmoil through a powerful and hypnotic cinematic journey, and for its compromise with the past in order to confront the present and the next future, the FIPRESCI prize for IFFR 2021 goes to The Edge of Daybreak by Taiki Sakpisit.”
Taiki Sakpisit (ไทกิ ศักดิ์พิสิษฐ์) Taiki Sakpisit is a filmmaker and moving image artist working in Bangkok. His works explore the underlying tensions and conflicts, and the sense of anticipation in contemporary Thailand, through precise and sensorially overwhelming audio-visual assemblage using a wide range of sounds and images.
His films produce heightened and uneasy modes of spectatorship that often relate to the tumultuous socio-political climate in Thailand. Taiki’s moving images and experimental shorts have been presented at numerous exhibitions and film festivals, including International Film Festival Rotterdam, Images Festival, Yebisu International Festival for Art, Les Rencontres Internationales, Dallas Contemporary and Kunstverein Gottingen.