The Master

Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit recreates the Thai video store responsible for introducing cinema to some of the nation’s most important filmmakers of the past decades, Van VDO. A joyful homage to piracy and to the love of film!

The history of cinema is a history of piracy – just ask any archivist on this planet how their institutions began… In that sense, video piracy was not only a shady business but could, at times, also turn into an endeavour of great cultural importance. Just ask some of IFFR’s beloved Thai directors like Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Banjong Pisanthanakun and Kongdej Jaturanrasamee how they got to see some of the international titles that inspired their future filmmaking! They’ll all point to a long defunct place called Van VDO whose proprietor sold pirated copies of all kinds of films, the kind of artful films one otherwise couldn’t get to see. By doing so, Mr. Van became something of a mentor to several of Thailand’s most interesting filmmakers of the last 30 or so years. For The Master, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit recreated Van VDO down to the tiniest bit of knick-knack, to get the memories flowing of those who went there in search of treasure, usually to return richer than they ever expected.

– Olaf Möller

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