Dr. Narumol Sriyanond, 62, won five awards including Best Director and Best Story at January's edition of the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards (Hiida) for her new film Elephants in Motion: Tales of Life Transformation. Telling the story of Thailand’s mahouts and the deep bond they have with their elephants, the documentary is Dr. Narumol’s first film since her 2011 debut Building for Life: Moving AIDS to the Positive Life was selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Why did you choose captive Thai elephants as your subject?
A good documentary should look for a story or angle which no one has looked at before. I live between New York and Thailand, and see how Thailand is always judged from a Western angle, even by Thais, who see that we torture these animals to work for humans. I wanted to tell another side of the story, about the deep bond between Thai people and elephants and how we exist together. It’s part of our history. The elephant is our true national treasure.
Whereabouts did you shoot?
My dad used to be one of the heads of Forest Industry Organization (FIO) 40 years ago, which is how I got to know the bond between elephants and mahouts, so I started from there. I also went to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center under Royal Patronage in Lampang to show how we treat wounded and old elephants, as well as to Surin and other provinces in the South, where elephants are used for tourism and logging and live with Muslim people harmoniously.
Your film gives a very positive look on the relationship between elephants and their handlers. Surely there are many incidents of mistreatment, too?
There are good and bad people in every profession, and that goes for mahouts, too. The elephant is a very intelligent animal. There was one case of a ferocious elephant named Arisman who killed at least two mahouts that had treated him badly. If this case happened in the West, they would kill the elephant for sure. But here, we treat elephant with love. We even have the world’s first elephant hospital where conservationists tried to heal Arisman’s mind. Now he lives happily with another mahout who loves and respects him. They now work together in the South. I want to show the world that we have learned to live compassionately with elephants for so long.
Which cases touched you the most while filming?
In the five years it took me to finish this film I encountered a lot of extraordinary stories. There was one case of an old man named Lung Sui living with a blind and crippled elephant named Boonpradap. They had been together since Uncle Sui was just eight years old. They were never apart. One time, Uncle Sui got so drunk he passed out on a dirt road near where they worked on a logging site. Instead of wandering off, Boonpradap stood over him and used tree leaves to fan insects away for hours until he woke up. Sadly, Boonpradap died last year after drinking polluted water.
Is there a chance that your documentary will be shown on Thai television?
I created it to air on digital TV as a one-hour documentary, but I really hope executives at Thai TV channels do show interest in this film and buy it to air as they do with Korean and American series.
How do you feel about women’s position in the Thai filmmaking industry?
It is really dominated by men. Yes, there are many more women working in the industry than in the past, but still we are underrepresented. I want to encourage women to do more, to look for movie projects and documentary topics which interest them; to find the right angle and speak out.
