Breaking the Cycle review – meet the charismatic Thai politician striving to change his country’s history

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Gripping documentary examines the Future Forward Party’s unprecedented 2019 election result, and its leader’s aim to break Thailand’s repeated military coups With his disarming good looks, pro-democracy activist and businessman Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit resembles an actor rather than a typical Thai politician. Heir to the country’s largest car manufacturer, he is blessed not only with personable charisma but also inexhaustible funds. His stunning rise into public consciousness is the beating heart of Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s debut film, a thrilling documentary about an extraordinary political campaign that shook a nation. As founder of the progressive Future Forward Party (FFP), Juangroongruangkit’s central message cut through the noise of electoral politics: secure a brighter future by correcting the wrongs of the past. Since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has undergone a never-ending cycle of military takeovers, including 12 coups. Dur...
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Dreaming an Island review – an eerie tour of planet Earth’s depopulated future

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This documentary about a small Japanese island, a once thriving mining outpost that now has only 100 residents, lightens its existential concerns with a focus on human connection

In his second full-length documentary, Swiss director Andrea Pellerani gives us a guided tour of what a post-industrial, post-growth, or even an eerily post-human future might look like. We are on the south-western Japanese island of Ikeshima. Once a thriving mining outpost that was home to 8,000 people, since the facility’s closure in 2001 it has been reduced to just 100 mostly elderly holdouts. As the residents fish the grey sea off abandoned wharves, inspect pregnant cats and loiter around derelict lots, there is a sense they inhabit the set of a long-shuttered stage play, and are awaiting new lines.

Though it begins with long tracking shots of greenery choking empty apartment blocks, Dreaming an Island isn’t exactly ruin porn. Pellerani is more interested in the vestiges of human activity, and milks a distinct absurdity from the stalwart locals. One collects “fun” beach flotsam, there are guides waiting rather optimistically for an upswing in coal-mining tourism, while Ikeshima’s sole restaurateur hopes for a customer. “Is there anything interesting to see?” asks one who finally turns up. “In what sense interesting?” she replies.

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