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Railway Sleepers
(Mon Rot Fai)

Directed by Sompot Chidgasornpongse.
Thailand, 2017, DCP, color, 102 min.
Thai with English subtitles.
DCP source: Grasshopper Films

Filmed over a period of eight years onboard trains traveling across every active railway line in Thailand, Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s first feature is as much an intimate glimpse of passengers in transit as it is a portrait of a country in the midst of unprecedented transition. Chidgasornpongse’s skillfully crafted debut offers a thoughtful examination of the history and class dynamics of a country being hurdled forward into an uncertain future. It is also a remarkable mediation on temporality, light and movement. The film draws as much on the formal structuralism of his former teacher James Benning as it builds upon the contemplative experimentation of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Railway Sleepers’ Executive Producer) with whom Chidgasornpongse has worked as an assistant director for many films and gallery projects over the past fifteen years.

PRECEDED BY

  • A Room with a Coconut View

    Directed by Tulapop Saenjaroen.
    2018, DCP, color, 29 min.
    Thai with English subtitles.

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