How did a young, Buddhist art teacher from the north of Thailand, end up lying comatose in a pool of blood at a village kindergarten school in the deep Islamic South? Taking the 2006 case of Juling Pongkanmul as his starting point, colourful human rights activist and senator, Kraisak Choonhavan, goes on the road to investigate the four-year strife between separatists and army troops in southern Thailand. From the opening scenes of ecstatic royalist crowds on the streets of Bangkok on Coronation Day in June 2006, to the festive military coup d’etat that ends it, the filming of Citizen Juling coincided with the last four intense months of Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra government, under which thousands died in extra-judicial killings and many disappeared. Shot in cinéma vérité style, Citizen Juling offers an unflinching and achingly human view of some of Thailand’s social conflicts.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
