Midnight Bloom

Korkan Bupphawatth begins with questions about his father’s disappearance but instead finds his father’s death appearing in a dream one night. Later, the truth is confirmed: his father has passed away.

The body of Chatchan Boopphawan, also known as ‘Comrade Phuchana,’ a former political activist who fled into exile after the 2014 coup, surfaced in December 2018, floating in the Mekong River in his hometown of Nakhon Phanom province. It was as if he had returned from a long journey away from home. His body had been gutted and weighted down with a concrete block, as if someone tried to bury a secret beneath the water — but the truth did not sink.

The son’s search for the truth began — not to identify the murderer, because to this day no one has been punished — but he found something more painful: a subtle fracture in the relationship between him and his father, traces of misunderstanding, and silences never spoken in their lives.

This documentary is not merely an investigation into the death of a man, but a conversation across time between a deceased father and his living son, through memories, dreams, and the echoes of the past that still resonate in the present.

In his nightly dreams, Ko-gan awaits his father’s voice like the whisper of a ghost at midnight. He told the documentary director that he wishes to meet his father once more, and if given the chance, he would ask about the unanswered truths — both about his father’s death and the life that connected them.

Director’s Statement :

I first met Korkan Bupphawatt in August 2023, during a memorial event for Wanchalearm Satsaksit, a political exile who was forcibly disappeared in Cambodia. That day, Korkan and his younger brother performed a stand-up comedy act—not one that simply provoked laughter, but a courageous mockery of sorrow. That image stayed with me, and I knew right then that I wanted to tell his story.

After the event, I introduced myself and asked for his contact. I wanted to feature his story in a project I was working on, The Sky Will See The Moon (ฉันจะฝันถึงเธอ)—a fi lm that seeks to explore wounds and lives through the dreams people have at night.

Korkan’s story drew media attention after the death of his comrade, Phuchana (Chatchan Bupphawan), an event that shook many and evoked deep compassion for the human condition. At the same time, it exposed the grotesque state of freedom of expression in Thailand.

Midnight Bloom is part of The Sky Will See The Moon, yet it has a life of its own. It’s like a fl ower slowly blooming in dim light.

While working on Midnight Bloom, I was also restoring my late father’s old pickup truck, which had been sitting idle for 11 years. As I repaired the vehicle, memories resurfaced—memories of traveling with my father through the dark countryside nights to screen outdoor fi lms in rural villages. The past arrives like a distant beam of light, as if from a fi lm projector—inviting us to sit in silence and darkness, contemplating its story like we would in a cinema.

I often edited Midnight Bloom in the early hours of dawn—a liminal space between sleep and waking. And at times, I wasn’t sure whether I was telling the story between Korkan and his father, or between myself and mine.