Sompot Chidgasornpongse spent more than two decades as assistant director to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, working on films including “Tropical Malady,” “Syndromes and a Century,” “Cemetery of Splendour” and “Memoria.” Now he is at Cannes with a feature of his own: “9 Temples to Heaven,” an ensemble drama about a Thai family’s one-day pilgrimage to nine temples, world premiering in Directors’ Fortnight and in competition for the Caméra d’Or.
The film follows Sakol, who – after a fortune teller warns him his elderly mother may die soon – gathers the family for a ritual journey across Thailand’s temple landscape. Produced by Kick The Machine Films and At A Time in Thailand, with international co-production from 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 picture has international sales handled by Playtime.
The story took root in Chidgasornpongse’s own family rituals. “Making offerings at 9 temples within 1 day, which my family and many Thais also practice, feels like one of the ultimate manifestations of those beliefs,” he says. “Though my critical side has always questioned the effectiveness of the promised outcomes, I continued to practice those rituals, sometimes simply to please my family, or to give myself peace of mind. I’m interested in those contradictions.”
The film’s central practice is a ritual called Sangkatan, in which devotees offer containers of useful items to the monastic community. “My aim was simply to capture the way things really are in contemporary Thai temples, the regular everyday things that can happen, at least from what I’ve witnessed through my own experiences,” Chidgasornpongse says.
Structured as a road movie, the film opens in morning light and tracks the family through to nightfall, moving from one temple to the next with scenes of travel in between. Chidgasornpongse trained as an architect before turning to cinema and later completed an MFA in Film/Video at CalArts. “We were trained to first think about the overall plan and layout before dealing with the details,” he says. “Perhaps because of that, I often see the structure of my films first, including my short films, even before I fully know the stories that will eventually exist within them.”
The script took shape during a period of political turbulence in Thailand following the death of King Bhumibol. “It created many fractures within society and even within families, especially between the older and younger generations, in terms of how differently they view established sacred institutions and where the country should be heading in the future,” Chidgasornpongse says. Those tensions run through the generational dynamics of the film’s central family.
Weerasethakul serves as producer on the project, extending a working partnership of more than two decades. “I’ve been working closely with Apichatpong for more than 23 years now, so it’s almost impossible to list everything I’ve learned from him,” Chidgasornpongse says, adding, with evident humor, that his mentor “still hasn’t made a feature film about a big family ensemble like this one.”
On landing in Directors’ Fortnight for his feature debut, Chidgasornpongse says: “Directors’ Fortnight is an amazing section and the home of many films that I love, films that have deeply inspired me as both a filmmaker and a film lover, so premiering our film there is my greatest honor.”
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