Introduction

“Road cinema”, the screening of films from trucks in village places, was once commonplace in Thailand. As multiplexes opened in shopping malls at the outskirts of towns, the process was turned around: the cinema had previously driven to its audience, now the audience had to drive to the cinema.
Not only are multiplexes out of reach geographically and disproportionally expensive for those living in remote and/or deprived rural areas, but also their programming is limited to mainstream productions from major studios.
FLY STORIES will once again bring film as a means of storytelling and social happening into the public sphere, by touring a selection of international films on the theme of migration and journeys, and offering workshops in digital filmmaking.

Migration, Movement, Mobility …
Northern Thailand, with its long history as a dynamic crossroads for trade and migration, has hosted a rich variety of regional, semi-nomadic cultures. Current political discourse around culture and identity follows global trends by focussing on the question of immigration. The key event in migration and immigration is movement. But what is it in the nature of movement that makes it a political action? With Thailand's "shift to an information society", mobility of one sort (the mobility of data) is becoming highly valued, but the physical mobility of semi-nomadic peoples and refugees from regional conflict constitutes a political "problem". FLY STORIES aims to engender and stimulate informed public debate on such matters through the mobile screening programme.

An eclectic selection of shorts and feature films, ranging from documentary, animation, and drama to music video clips and collaborative productions, tells stories of journeys and migration under varying circumstances and diverse premises. Surreal fiction, personal biography, and humour are some of the modes that these films use to inform, raise questions and elicit responses to facts and fantasies of movement and migration.