Abstract

This text is an edited version of my curatorial essay for `The More Things Change...', the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5). I introduce it here with some background on the political flux since the most recent coup d'etat (2006), from which Thailand's political system is yet to recover. I outline two key themes that emerged in BEFF 5's Thai programmes. The first concerns the cycles — `historical, biological and psycho-social' — that find expression in the country's repetitive political narrative. The second concerns the poetics of reproduction in Thailand, an historical, economic and spiritual complex that connects everyday life and folk culture with sovereign and national symbolism. This article is not a comprehensive engagement with the films in BEFF 5, but rather seeks to establish a context in which non-mainstream Thai visual culture might be better understood. I also offer some reflections on the relationship between film and contemporary art in Thailand.