Theatrical Screening
Gene Siskel Film Center
Wheelchair and mobility device accessible; hearing loop equiped
Free for SAIC students, $5 for SAIC/AIC faculty and staff, and $12 for the general public.
SAIC student and SAIC/AIC faculty and staff tickets are available from the Gene Siskel Film Center box office.
General audience tickets are available from the box office or here.
2009, Anocha Suwichakornpong, Thailand, DCP, 82 minutes
The corporeal and the cosmic collide to mesmerizing effect in Anocha Suwichakornpong’s debut feature. Mundane History begins straightforwardly enough, as nurse Pun takes a new job caring for Ake, a paralyzed young man whose angry defiance gradually softens into grudging respect. But as the two men form a tentative friendship, Suwichakornpong explodes her own film, blowing open an abstract realm that encompasses everything from dream worlds to Thai history to the miracle of birth to the death of stars. At once slyly unassuming and dazzlingly ambitious, this existential odyssey heralded the arrival of a bold new visionary of Thai cinema. In Thai with English subtitles. (Description adapted from Film at Lincoln Center)
Screening with:
Nightfall
2016, Anocha Suwichakornpong and Tulapop Saenjaroen, Thailand/Singapore, DCP, 15 minutes
Nightfall follows an unnamed woman through the streets, gardens, and tourist spots in Singapore. “On the soundtrack we hear a woman’s voice reading the speeches of Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Thai Prime Minister Kittikachorn at a 1973 State dinner praising each other’s economies 10 months before the popular uprising that overthrew Kittikachorn’s military and anti-communist dictatorship. This coup planted the seeds of the 1976 Thammasat University massacre—the historical subject of Suwichakornpong’s 2016 feature film By the Time It Gets Dark” (Steffanie Ling, Senses of Cinema). In Thai with English subtitles.
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Wheelchair and mobility device accessible; hearing loop equipped
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Friday, October 22–Thursday, October 28
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Krabi, 2562 with Jai
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ABOUT
Anocha Suwichakornpong is a filmmaker whose work is informed by the socio-political history of Thailand. Her films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York; TIFF Cinematheque, Toronto; Cinéma Moderne, Montreal; and Olhar de Cinema, Brazil. Suwichakornpong received her master of fine arts from Columbia University. In 2006, Suwichakornpong co-founded the production company Electric Eel. In 2017, she co-founded Purin Pictures, an initiative to support Southeast Asian cinema. Between 2018 and 2020, Suwichakornpong was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University. In 2019, Suwichakornpong was named a Prince Claus Laureate.
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For additional accessibility requests, including ASL interpretation or audio description, please visit saic.edu/access.
GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
To gain entry to the Film Center, you will be asked to present a valid photo ID and one of the following
- Physical vaccination card
- A legible photo, copy, or scan of your cardan image on your phone will be acceptable provided that it is legible
- Proof of a negative result on a COVID PCR test conducted within 72 hours of the film or event start time
Masks are required at all times. For more information, please visit the Film Center's COVID-19 page.
