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As the air is thick with mutual mistrust, it's impossible to imagine any random person wandering into some village with a movie camera expecting to be greeted with co-operation - or to be greeted at all. It's even worse if that person, say, is escorted by authority figures, like soldiers or policemen. Kraisak's status as a politician who publicly speaks against the authority has earned him the trust of the southern people mired in the sense of prolonged injustice, and somehow they open up to him.
"If anything, the movie stresses the point that the justice system of this country is not functioning," says Kraisak. "The South is an extreme case, but it's a microcosm of what's happening everywhere in Thailand."
And it will be no small injustice if the movie goes unseen by a wider audience. Manit and Ing are concerned that the film's daunting length, over three-and-a-half hours, will dim interest even from alternative movie houses, though they believe it's possible to divide Citizen Juling into a series for TV.
But it goes without saying that their principal concern is censorship. Since the new Film Act, which will introduce a ratings system to Thailand, is still to be delivered from the womb of the Culture Ministry, the process remains with the police. The police consider each film along with a group of representatives from the government and cultural agencies, who can demand filmmakers cut scenes they deem "inappropriate". Nevertheless, the new Film Act still retains the right of the state to cut or ban films that may disrupt "national stability" - deliberately open phrasing that can be applied to films that do not play in favour of the powers-that-be, especially ones that have a political edge."Let's see what we can do, but it's my dream to show this small movie to Thai audiences in Bangkok," says Ing.
Maybe in the the rest of country too. Despite the many southern faces we encounter in the film, it is a burly northern man who springs out to capture our attention. A Thai man of Akha origin speaks with a mixture of grief and fury about the plight of hilltribe people: the persecution, the fear, and yes, the state injustice that has left a wound inside his soul. "We're also victims," he says. What citizen Juling faced, we realise, may not be so different from what we, and other citizens, are facing.
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