"40 years ago, my father worked as a projectionist in a small town of Thailand. He screened many films from India, Hong Kong, including Thai Films along the coast through the east of the country. He didn’t tell me much about the details because we didn’t actually talk much especially about films. But every time he talked about this, I can see everything in his eyes; the print, the projector, those seats, the audiences. I never asked him the reason why he started the business,  but he mentioned a bit about the reason why he stopped. He told me he couldn’t make any money by screening the film. After each film finished, he didn’t have anything left except the film and poster. Everyone went back home, except him packing everything up alone in the theatre. After a while, our house was on fire, and everything was completely gone including those films and posters.

To some people, the magic might have already gone. I hardly found it too ! The magic, in fact, is really gone when we grow up I think. We stop falling in love and falling into the reality instead. But when we die, we can’t bring anything with us. Yet we can leave, at least a word.

To me, Cinema these days is like old people. They are certainly dying, slowly. 

Most of people don’t like old people because they are not fun or even boring. I also think old people are not fun, but being with them I feel very peaceful, or even found the answer to live longer. Sometimes I got a goose bump and my tears come out. Listening to old people’s stories sometimes is hard to understand but I always feel the strange vibration somewhere inside my body. I don’t know if that vibration actually happened in my heart or not, but many people told me they can see it in my eyes."

Patavee Viranuvat

June, 2013

Gwangju, South Korea