Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest: Blinding Flash and Echo Fire

Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest: Blinding Flash and Echo Fire

Every Saturday and Sunday, 3:00 - 3:45 PM, throughout September
At MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai
Accessible with no additional cost beyond the museum admission ticket
(This program screened with Thai audio and no English subtitles)

MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum invites you to the film screening program Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest: Blinding Flash and Echo Fire, presented as part of the public programming alongside the exhibition October 6th: a reconfigured archive. The program invites a collective re-examination of the traumatic wounds in Thai political history marking 50 years since the 6 October 1976 massacre .

The program Old Path in the Deep Dark Forest: Blinding Flash and Echo Fire overlapping layers of meaning. It spans the physical spaces of political movements prior to 6 October 1976, the forests where students and citizens were forced into political exile following the massacre, and the murky political landscape shaped by state discourse and distortion.

This selection of films revisits the 6 October 1976 massacre through the eyes of contemporary artists and political movements. The directors transform memories embedded in archival photographs into moving images. The blinding flash of that day represents both the camera flash documenting history and the muzzle flash from gun barrels. Though archival photographs cannot retain sound, the silence within them echoes across time into present-day political struggles, directly challenging state-constructed historical narratives, refusing state-imposed amnesia, and confronting state violence past and present.

Featured Films (Total Runtime: 44.47 mins)

ชวนอ่านภาพ 6 ตุลา [Reading 6 Oct Images], 2022 (Chulayarnnon Siriphol, 32.18 mins)

In 2022, the Documentation of Oct 6 project discovered a new set of photographs from the 6 October 1976 event. This documentary engages with these newly uncovered photographs through interviews with six individuals across different generations and backgrounds, ranging from photojournalists and students present during 6 October 1976 to high school students and political activists today.

Don't Forget Me, 2003 (Manussak Dokmai, 10.13 mins)

An experimental short film combining archival footage of the 6 October 1976 event with songs and audio narration from a Cold War-era documentary on the Mla ethnic group, historically referred to as "Phi Tong Luang" (Spirits of the Yellow Leaves). The film constructs a satirical juxtaposition of Thai politics while critiquing the perception of humanity during the Cold War.

MV Yung Thong - 6 Oct, 2020 (United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, 2.16 mins)

A music video intertwining footage of the 6 October 1976 event with "Yung Thong," the royal composition that became the official anthem of Thammasat University in the later era, replacing its former anthem "Mon Du Dao."