Film Screening: “The Last Breath of Sam Yan” (Prempapat Plittapolkranpim, 2023) + Q&A with producers
Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, producer; Settanant Thanakitkoses, co-producer
About the film:
Winner of the 2023 Suphannahong National Film Award for best documentary.
The neighborhood of Sam Yan in Bangkok, Thailand, is mostly filled with new shopping malls and condominiums. The Chao Mae Thap Thim (Mazu) Shrine, long cherished by neighborhood residents and members of the local community, is the only holdout of the Property Management of Chulalongkorn University's (PMCU) redevelopment project.
In June 2020, an order came from PMCU to relocate the shrine. The developer's plan was to construct a 1,800-unit residential building for university staff and a dormitory for students. PMCU also sued the shrine's administrator for 4.6 billion baht. Residents and students protested the plan to dismantle their community's shrine, leading to the hashtag #saveThapthimShrine and a movement to protect the last breath of the historic area.
From the director:
“The film captures and conveys the struggle to preserve the Thapthim Shrine which is being demolished by the number 1 university in Thailand. Court administrators are under intense pressure from the legal process. The film presents the concept of gentrification which is becoming a concept in urban development in many places around the world until it becomes unequal.” —Prempapat Plittapolkranpim (via FilmFreeway)
About the speakers:
Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal is a Thai activist, editor-in-chief, translator, writer, and the country's first modern conscientious objector. In 2022, he was ordained as a Buddhist monk; he subsequently chose to disrobe and return to secular life in order to uphold his principled opposition to military conscription as a civilian without the privilege of religious exemption. Without the shield of the temple, he risks a prison sentence of up to 3 years.
Alongside his university studies, Netiwit works as an advocate for democracy, human rights, and the Milk Tea Alliance. His fields of interest include student activism, Milk Tea Alliances, Thai politics, social movements, urban activism, religious as well as secular and engaged Buddhism, political liberalism, Chinese politics and history, and philosophy, particularly the work of Isaiah Berlin. His translations include works that contribute to understanding of democracy and civic engagement such as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Vaclav Havel’s “Letter to Dr. Huzek,” Hannah Arendt’s Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship, Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty, Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny, as well as several essays by Liu Xiaobo and Joshua Wong.
Netiwit has been elected to several leadership positions at Chulalongkorn University, including president of the student council (June–August 20171), president of the political science student union (2020–21), and president of the student union (2021–22). In 2018, he received a Freedom Fellowship from the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation, was an invited speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and was named one of “50 Asians to watch in the public and social sector” by the Straits Times.
1Netiwit, along with other student leaders, was prematurely removed from this post following a controversial decision by the university to penalize student activists for engaging in protest during a student ceremony.
Settanant Thanakitkoses is a managing editor at Samnak Nisit Sam Yan Student Publishing House (Sam Yan Press). He is a graduate of Chulalongkorn University's faculty of arts with a Spanish major and philosophy minor. Settanant was also the president of academic affairs of the student government at Chulalongkorn University, and served as the first director of the Department of Humanitarian and Human Rights Affairs of Student Government, Chulalongkorn University. Settanant exhibits high passion and curiosity in philosophy, politics and religions, especially Hinayana Buddhism, while advocating for “effective altruism” through multiple social movement activities and actively taking part in proofreading and translation-related tasks for Sam Yan Press.
What critics are saying:
“A must-watch.” —Claudio Sopranzetti, author of Owners of the Map
“A front row seat at a battle between a centuries-old community trying to exist and a profit-hungry university trying to expand.” —Philip Jablon, author of Thailand's Movie Theaters
”An ethnographic document with wide relevance.” —Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor's Professor of Chinese History and World History, UC Irvine