By all accounts, Bangkok wasn’t meant to become the epicentre of experimental documentary. And yet here we are, while most of the city hides indoors from the rain or queues up for iced coffee, a quiet cultural rebellion is about to begin.
What the Doc! (WTD!) – Thailand’s first-ever international documentary film festival – isn’t here to play by the rules. In fact, it wants to rip them up entirely. Running from August 22-31, this inaugural edition promises something thrillingly unpolished: real stories told by filmmakers who aren’t interested in being polite.
18 documentaries – six Thai, 12 international – will go head-to-head for top honours, and not a single one is here for background noise. These are bold, opinionated, often unpredictable works, picked from a staggering 1,599 submissions. They're not just ‘in’ competition – they ‘are’ the competition. No streaming, no replays, no safety nets. You show up or you miss out.
There’s serious money on the line, too. Feature and short-length winners will walk away with B200,000 in their back pockets, with a jury prize of B180,000 close behind. There's also B100,000 waiting for the best female director, and another for the film that goes greenest – because yes, apparently saving the planet is also a genre now.
The brains behind this ambitious move? Documentary Club with support from THACCA, the Department of Cultural Promotion, the Ministry of Culture of Thailand, Chamnong Rangsikun Foundation, Koh-Kae and White Light Studio. Together, they’re less interested in prestige and more in possibility – hoping to map out the sprawling, strange, deeply human landscape of documentary filmmaking in its most varied forms.
Is it the next Sundance? We don’t know. But What the Doc! is about to make Thailand’s documentary scene less National Geographic, more ‘hold my beer’. And honestly, thank God.
You can find the full programme on the WTD! Website right here. Screening locations will be revealed soon.