After making four documentary features about border conflicts, ethnicity, prostitution and human rights, Thai director Nontawat Numbenchapol picks up many of the same themes in his first fiction feature “Doi Boy.”
The film, which premieres this week in the Jiseok competition section of the Busan International Film Festival, is the story of three young men living on the margins of society in Thailand and their common quest for justice. The characters are an illegal immigrant from Myanmar working, despite his own heterosexuality, as a gay prostitute in Chiang Main, a customer and an on-the-run political activist he is trying to help.
The narrative takes in a large number of the social and political problems that have beset seemingly idyllic Thailand in recent years – undocumented workers, illegal immigrants fleeing the civil war in Myanmar, an oppressive political power structure, enforced ‘disappearance’ of those who the government’s political opponents and critics, police brutality – and traffic jams.
“I was surprised to find so many immigrant men [from Myanmar’s Shan region] as sex workers in Chiang Mai. It is not because they want this kind of work, but because they are undocumented and forced into low-paid jobs. I thought about making this as a documentary, but the subject is too dangerous to do that way,” Numbenchapol told PvNew. “Another reason that I took this route was that I felt I’d already learned a lot about making documentaries and risked becoming stale. In contrast when I saw this as a feature, I was excited again like a baby. Everything was new again.”
“I developed the film over five years, and the script changed a lot over that time, just as there were many important events that changed my country over that same period. I started with ethnic minorities and gender issues, but as the character moves to Thailand they have to give up their dream and face up to another set of social issues. These include corruption and environmental issues too,” said Numbenchapol, “But I think the biggest topic in my film is how everyone starts out with a dream, but that dream is not safe because of the social situation.”
Despite the gritty subject matter and the authorities’ list of taboo subjects that many well-known filmmakers have confronted, Numbenchapol says he did not encounter any censorship at the production stage. “I certainly worried about it, but I think that by making this as fiction was less of a problem than if we had made a film with real people’s names.”
Numbenchapol wrote a draft of the script and saw it significantly through a series of producers’ labs, project markets and co-production markets, starting with the 2016 SEAFIC development program, That was followed by 2017 EAVE Ties That Bind – Steve Chen, Producer, 2017 Busan Festival Asian Project Market, 2017 Luang Prabang Film Lab – Nontawat Numbenchapol, Director, 2018 Busan Asian Film School (AFiS) – Supatcha Thipsena, Producer, 2018 Berlinale Co-Production Market (with support from Goethe-Institut Thailand), 2018 Cannes Cinéfondation l’Atelier – Official Selection, invitation only, and the 2019 Cannes Thai Pitch.
A lot of the potential co-producers from Europe were interested but expected to see a portion of the budget come from Thailand. “It is not easy because Thailand does not have many funds like in Germany or France, and this project was likely too critical for it to receive support from the government’s fund,” said Numbenchapol. But, surprisingly, he found backing from new studio Neramitnung Film, which was interested in putting up the entire production budget.
“I talked with my [French Cambodian] producer Davy Chou (“Golden Slumbers,” “Return to Seoul”) at Anti-Archive, and we decided go with Neramitnung, because their money seemed really secure and to say sorry to some of the others who wanted to be involved,” said Numbenchapol. That left the film as a Thai-Cambodian co-production.
The budget was typical for a Thai-produced indie, pegged at $725,000. That was enough for 20 days of shooting and provided limited room for improvization.
Though Numbenchapol says he’d like to go further in the fiction register and has not committed to his next project, he won’t be turning his back on non-fiction either. “I make documentaries in order to make a living. I’m often contacted to help out on foreign production Or, to make short documentaries for NGOs, TV or as art. The income is not as bad as people think,” Numbenchapol says.
