Sompot Chidogasongponse spent more than 20 years as an assistant director to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, working on films such as Tropical Disease, The Syndrome and the Century, The Great Tomb and Memoria. He is currently in Cannes with his feature film, “Nine Temples to Heaven.” The film, a group drama about a Thai family’s one-day pilgrimage to nine temples, had its world premiere at Directors Fortnight and was entered in the Camera d’Or competition.
The film follows Sakol, who is warned by a fortune teller that her elderly mother may soon die, and gathers her family to embark on a ritual journey through the temple landscape of Thailand. Produced by Kick The Machine Films and At A Time in Thailand, with an international co-production of E&W Films (Singapore), petit Chaos (France), Needle in the Haystack (Norway), La Fonte (China), Square One Film (Hong Kong), and Qun Films (Indonesia), the film’s international sales are handled by Playtime.
The story was rooted in Chidogasongponse’s own family rituals. “Making offerings to nine temples within one day, which my family and many Thais also practice, feels like one of the ultimate manifestations of these beliefs,” he says. “My critical side always questioned the validity of the promised results, but I continued to practice those rituals, sometimes just to please my family or to give myself a sense of security. I’m interested in those contradictions.”
The film’s central practice is a ritual called Sankatan, in which devotees offer vessels containing useful items to the monastic community. “My aim was simply to capture the reality of modern Thai temples, or at least the everyday happenings that can occur from what I have witnessed through my own experience,” Chidogasongponse says.
Structured as a road movie, the film begins in the morning light and follows the family from temple to temple until nightfall, interspersed with travel scenes. Chidgasong Ponce trained as an architect before turning to film, and later earned a master’s degree in film/video from California Arts. “We were trained to think about the overall plan and layout first before tackling the details,” he says. “Perhaps that’s why I often understand the structure of my films first, including short films, before fully understanding the story that ultimately exists within them.”
The script took shape during a period of political turmoil in Thailand following the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. “This has created a lot of rifts within society and even within families, especially between older and younger generations, in terms of different views on established sacred institutions and where the country should go in the future,” Chidogasongponse says. Such tensions run through the intergenerational dynamics of the family at the center of the film.
Weerasethakul is a producer on the project, with whom they have collaborated for over 20 years. “I’ve worked closely with director Apichatpong for over 23 years, so it’s almost impossible to enumerate everything I’ve learned from him,” Chidogasongponse said, adding with obvious humor that his mentor “has yet to make a feature film about a large family gathering like this film.”
Regarding his debut feature film, which will be featured in Director’s Fortnight, director Chidogasongponse said the following: “Directors’ Fortnight is a great section and home to so many films that I love, works that have deeply inspired me both as a filmmaker and as a film lover, so it would be my greatest honor to premiere our film there.”
