’Runaway’ foreign film productions from a global South perspective: film workers’ memories and site-specific traces from Thailand
Issued Date
2022-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
25785273
eISSN
25785265
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85143287817
Journal Title
Transnational Screens
Volume
13
Issue
3
Start Page
218
End Page
233
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Transnational Screens Vol.13 No.3 (2022) , 218-233
Suggested Citation
Promkhuntong W. ’Runaway’ foreign film productions from a global South perspective: film workers’ memories and site-specific traces from Thailand. Transnational Screens Vol.13 No.3 (2022) , 218-233. 233. doi:10.1080/25785273.2022.2144929 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/83457
Title
’Runaway’ foreign film productions from a global South perspective: film workers’ memories and site-specific traces from Thailand
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
This article explores the subject known in the Anglophone context as ‘runaway’ film productions through examining records by peripheral film workers and the legacy associated with a specific film location in Thailand. Considering the post-Cold War period when ‘foreign’ filmmaking had just taken off and the more recent (post)-COVID-19 labour movement within the country, the article proposes a revisit to film production history via a consideration of on-the-fringe paratexts, sporadically circulated in the public domain, as a way to explore discourses associated with this kind of transnational film productions. The article draws on two key written records associated with the making of The Killing Fields (1984) namely a set diary by the late Sompol Sungkawess, a writer/translator who worked as a local assistant director for the film; and a published monologue by the late Spalding Gray, a playwright/performer who took a minor role in the movie. By conducting a ‘palimpsestuous reading’ of these accounts along with various site-specific traces, the article explores past and present conditions and practices with the aim to project alternative imaginaries of transnational screen service industry from a global South standpoint.