Politics meets personal survival, in this urgent, courageous and poetic bricolage diary that traces an exiled filmmaker’s escape from violent repression to the West via Thailand – only to face new forms of onerous control.
Socrates Saint-Wulfstan Drakos is not the real name of the director who made Unerasable! And when the film is over, everyone in the audience will understand why. The creator of such a politically outspoken work, one that confronts both the limits of civil liberties in an authoritarian Southeast Asian regime and the inner colonialism of a very neoliberal European country, would naturally prefer to take shelter behind an assumed name.
On the surface, the story is simple. An independent filmmaker, tortured for his participation in a pro-democracy movement, fled his home in 2018 and relocated to nearby Thailand, undocumented. After five years, he left the region for the West, hoping to build a new and finally dignified life for himself. Instead, he became caught in another struggle, this time with bureaucracy.
The story Drakos weaves from various kinds of images, some rough and nervous, others with a more professional sheen, and gradually develops a serene poetry that seems impossible to foresee in a work with such political urgency. It stands as a film shaped by pure heart and true dedication.
– Vanja Kaludjercic
Film details
- Countries of production
- Belgium, Thailand, Sweden
- Year
- 2026
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2026
- Length
- 97'
- Medium/Format
- DCP
