Month: July 2025

In Thailand, there’s a darkly humorous saying with a suggestive undertone: “What do stubborn kids deserve?”—a phrase implying that those who disobey must be punished. Whether it’s being caned at school or violently beaten at home, such acts have become normalized in Thai society under the guise of discipline, obedience, and filial piety. But no matter the form of punishment, no one truly wishes to endure it.

Today, in my country, many young people are imprisoned for 3 to 15 years simply for demanding justice. Some are abducted, disappeared, or killed just for speaking the truth. In Thailand, there are countless truths that cannot be publicly expressed—especially through film. Those who attempt to defy this are branded as dangerous threats to the nation, as traitors lacking patriotism. Once, in the not-so-distant past, young men and women were burned alive in the heart of the city simply because they were “naughty kids” who dared to speak the truth. Even more horrifying is the fact that the truth about their deaths was forbidden to be told. Their stories were suppressed, their memories buried, and in some cases, they were posthumously branded as criminals who deserved to die.

This repression continues to this day. Along the northern border, many innocent people have been murdered and falsely accused of drug trafficking or human trafficking. In the southern border region, torture and fabricated charges are still used to persecute the innocent. Those in power manufacture violence and then accuse indigenous people of being terrorists, separatists, or traitors to the nation.

In Thailand, being a “good boy” means respecting, accepting, and glorifying military and authoritarian power. Even when these powers break the law, you are forbidden from questioning them. Instead, you are expected to worship these figures who cloak themselves in moral virtue, presenting themselves as the sacred center of faith—molding Thai society into a nation of blind nationalism, hostile to progress and to the knowledge systems of a modern world that values liberty and demands human rights, which have never truly existed in my country.

These are the reasons I continue to make films, even if many of them may never be shown in Thailand, with the little funding I manage to gather.

…This morning, I went to the hospital after breaking my arm while filming a new documentary in the southern border region. My medical records listed me as 51 years and 10 months old. And yet, I only truly awakened in the past 15 years. I wasted more than 35 years of my life trying to be a “good boy” in this country without a future.

Thunska Pansittivorakul
July 18th 2025

As a filmmaker from Taiwan, perhaps the most fascinating—and telling—aspect of this work is how politics interferes with queer cinema. This is not only a domestic issue; it reflects the broader dynamics of the entire Chinese speaking community.

Here at home, the power to determine which projects receive annual production funding rests in the hands of seven senior industry veterans. And even though Taiwan is the most progressive country in Asia regarding LGBTQ+ rights, the films that get made still overwhelmingly reflect mainstream political narratives. Queer stories, when told, must shimmer with hope and light. Otherwise, they’re reduced to “brotherly affection” — lingering glances labeled as platonic — crafted to fit the media’s obsession with general-audience ratings and box office returns. Queer desire, in this context, is entirely castrated.

When you zoom out and look at the political entanglements between Taiwan and China, this isn’t just about queer cinema. Any topic banned in China finds its only viable path in Taiwan through the aforementioned subsidy system. But look closer — this is a dead end.

You might argue that we’ve seen suppressed yet direct depictions of sexuality in the works of Tsai Ming-liang, or that Ang Lee laid the foundation for queer storytelling in this region. But I’m sorry to say: every independent artist fighting for space in queer cinema has had to carve out their own way of surviving. Forget pleasing politics — no one has the time to care about you now anyway.

This environment has only pushed me to more actively explore desire, class, and social consciousness — and in doing so, I’ve begun to explore myself. Before I speak of cinema disobedience, let me share just one piece of advice with whoever’s reading this bitter confession from an Asian gay man:

Be friends with those who like you.
That’s my only stance toward creation.

There’s no need to weep your way into pleasing everyone. Want everything? You’ll end up with nothing.

I am Pina Brutal, alias Brutal Cunt= where I come from Pina is a slur for female genitalia, and I
wear this name with a pride no Hungarian can stand.
They can not call me Pina, because their shame would burn them, and that is where I shine.
Fuck shame.
Growing up, I did not know what queer was, and what freedom it would mean to me to identify as
such.
There was nothing available in my environment that would have informed me, and so I just learned
that I am somehow different. And different is bad, so it must be hidden.
And so I pretended, participated in the demanding body art performance that is being a “woman”.
Till I got so tired, lonely, and sad, that there was no other way than to leave my country and start
anew. Fast forward 10 years, I changed shapes and presentations like a snake changes its skin, I
was bald-head, I was a hard femme, I was a stripper and sex worker, I was an extreme body
artist, I was a bondage bunny, I was an artist, a nude model, a tattooed bad bitch covered in
scars, a pornographer, but mostly I was a person boldly wearing the many identities given to
them.
Queer to me means the absolute, radical freedom to be what you are, without shame and
apologies, to choose the people you want to be with and form a community stronger than
imaginable.
Queer is freedom and it is revolution, and if we wish to survive it is also the future.
Queer is to say NO. NO to the unlivable. NO to the often systematic hatred that prosecutes,
exploits, and threatens the queer, the artist, the immigrant, the differently abled, the dark-skinned
body.
As an artist, a person, a soul, a leopard, I will not follow the rules in life. I will not follow the rules of
art and filmmaking. I will not fit in. I will not obey.
I am a proud and brutal Cunt living life and my art will mirror my experience, which is somewhat
personal, and somewhat universal.
What can I say, EAT ME.