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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

Once Upon a Time… This Morning

Kala krangnung mua shao ni

Bhandit Rittakol | Thailand | 1994 | 133' | | IFFR 1996

As its title suggests, the film fuses the narrative dynamics of a fairy tale with an urgent social topicality: Vladimir Propp meets Ken Loach. A middle-class couple are separating and the three kids (the youngest still a babe in arms) are to stay with their bossy and resentful mother. Missing their beloved father, the kids run away to look for him – unaware that the baby’s carry-cot contains a bag of pure heroin hidden by a street-kid during a police raid. Soon everyone is looking for the children: the distraught parents, the police, and the street-kids who courier drugs for bigger boys and face heavy reprisals if they don’t retrieve the lost stash. The film works admirably as a ‘family-in-peril’ thriller – that is, an updated fairy tale – but it’s equally smart as an evocation of middle-class kids getting an education in Thai street-level realities. (T.R.)

Film details

Country of production
Thailand
Year
1994
Festival edition
IFFR 1996
Length
133"
Medium/Format
35mm

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