The Truth Be Told: The Cases Against Supinya Klangnarong

Pimpaka Towira is a serious and meticulous film maker. The film is political, just like the installation Black Air that she produced for the programme, but it certainly isn’t a pamphlet. Towira is not looking for a fight or conflict, but her integrity forces her not to avoid the battle. In that regard, she resembles her protagonist: the average Thai girl Supinya Klangnarong, forced by circumstances to take up arms against the greatest powers of Thailand.
Klangnarong is a respectable girl who learnt always to speak the truth. She also did that when she worked as a trainee journalist and wrote about the conflict of interests involving the telecom monopoly Shin Corporation and Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the owner of the company. But Thaksin set an army of lawyers on her and demanded compensation of 400 million baht (10 million dollars). The young Klangnarong, who still lives with her parents, would never have been able to earn that in 10 lifetimes. She was advised to take back her words, but revealed unsuspected courage by standing up to the dangerously turning windmills of the Thai Berlusconi. She became entangled in what was to be a long series of court cases and meanwhile developed into a controversial journalist. Her stubbornness inspired a whole movement of media activists who supported her case with demonstrations. (GjZ)