After moments of introduction, Chaiyapoom's face appears on the projection screen, a makeshift silver screen like the one on which his films could have been shown. The singing voice too belongs to the 17-year-old Lahu activist, killed in March this year for resisting arrest after soldiers allegedly found methamphetamine pills in his car.
But Chaiyapoom Pasae isn't just a name printed in news headlines. An advocate for ethnic minorities' rights and an aspiring documentary filmmaker, his death is the departure point for 11 short films screened earlier this month as part of the Thai Short Film And Video Festival.
Accounts of mysterious disappearances and extrajudicial killings, not dissimilar to this one, filled the room as filmmakers -- members of ethnic community groups themselves -- took to their cameras to tell their stories and attempt to capture what "truth" means to them.
However, such truth is often elusive -- either muddled up under piles of official paperwork or concealed by those figures of authority one might look up to. What remains then are the communities' efforts to reclaim their narrative.
The film programme is part of a larger project called "Holding Hands", in which Chaiyapoom once took part -- professional filmmakers and young members of ethnic groups jointly producing short movies promoting peace and human rights.
Traditionally excluded from the dominant discourse and media channels, the community members found a medium of self expression, portraying themselves rather than being viewed through others' eyes.
Scripted, lit up and shot with limited material and funding, daily woes and hardships found new meaning, as did moments of happiness. Although the eight-year-old project has resulted in nearly 40 short films made by a generation of young filmmakers, Chaiyapoom's death created a new sense of urgency.
"One of us has been killed, others were arrested. Moreover, our names has been dragged through the mud," says Maitree Jamroensuksakul, a Lahu activist, filmmaker and friend of Chaiyapoom. "What's left to say?"
Where words are missing, images help fill the void, although they can't repair the injustice. What we see in Maitree's seven-minute film Wait is a community struggling to grasp and make sense of the tragedy that has struck them, a father and a son waiting for their wife and mother's return after she was arrested in the aftermath of Chaiyapoom's death.
Maitree doesn't remember when he became involved with the Friends Without Borders Foundation through their Holding Hands project. "You'd have to ask others for the details," he says.
But he and Chaiyapoom had been making films long before that, for fun and in hopes of earning a bit of money -- homemade kung fu movies, fantastic tales that mimicked those they saw on television.
"The Lahu people never made a single movie before. Nowhere would you see a Lahu film, therefore our projects made us feel immensely proud," he adds.
Through their collaboration with professional filmmakers, they learned to make their voices resonate.
"I realised I was doing it all wrong," Maitree laughs. "Before working with the foundation, I never thought that films could be about real life. Now, I make movies so that other people can understand us better."
When searching Chaiyapoom's name on the internet, you find countless articles related to his death -- but scant accounts of his life. Still, you can put bits and pieces together when watching The Comb And The Buckle a short movie he collaborated on (the video can be found on YouTube).
The camera tails a stateless mother and son through administrative hassle and poverty, but with none of the drama one would expect. Instead, it's a seemingly peaceful, sleepy village life that is rendered on screen. This is real life.
While Chaiyapoom's shadow looms over the 11 short films screened at the festival, other figures come to mind -- disappeared Karen activist Porlajee "Billy" Rakchongcharoen and many more, nameless, faceless.
The films predominantly feature missing witnesses and conflicting reports. One haunting sequence is the one depicted in By Parol, directed by Patana Chirawong.
It has two schoolboys read out loud police statements about the same homicide case -- only two sets of facts can be heard through the hubbub. In one report, the deceased was innocent. In the police's conclusion, he was a drug dealer.
What comes out most strikingly from these films though, is the communities' forced acceptance of the truth they are presented with.
In The Ogre by Nattan Krungsri, villagers believe missing persons to have been taken by a mystical creature. In The Vacuum, directed by Supamok Silarak, a schoolteacher concludes that a disappeared boy has vanished into some paranormal void.
But what choice do they have, when all the odds and an unfair, unreliable system are pitted against them? Still, many chose to fight back, cameras being their weapon of choice, using images as evidence.
In The Ogre, one man seeks out the truth, capturing on camera the real culprits behind the disappearances -- none of them being supernatural.
Record, by Aroonakorn Pick, sees two men involved in a car accident, quarrel to bring evidence of the other's fault using live video functions on social media. The film's dark humorous tone is refreshing in itself, but by pitting two stereotypical characters against one another -- a middle-class urbanite in a sedan versus a villager on an old motorcycle -- gives us a glimmer of hope.
Our "underdog" resists and retaliates using the same tools as the more privileged car driver: technology.
It's hard not to see a parallel between the use of image as evidence and the absence of images in the case of Chaiyapoom's death. Seven CCTV cameras were set up in the area where he was killed, yet none of the images were made public.
The police and military accused Chaiyapoom of brandishing a hand grenade at them. Yet, we will never know if this were true, Maitree says. The filmmaker never knew Chaiyapoom to be a drug dealer. "But if he was, prove it to us then," he argued.
Truth for Maitree is a heavy word now, loaded with unspoken messages and unearthed evidence. But he stands his ground, his film is a promise that he will wait for truth to be revealed one day.
As the filmmakers released their 11 short films this past month, they came with another bittersweet announcement. Due to insufficient funding, the Holding Hands project will close down, said Pornsuk Koetsawang, the programme's co-ordinator.
But the project's spirit will live on, she assures. Young directors have now acquired the skills necessary to mentor future generations in their own communities. Many also went on to find their voice and become activists or citizen journalists.
"We don't have weapons. We don't have guns, and even if we did, we wouldn't know how to use them," Maitree adds. "Filming is our only means of defending ourselves."
"Even if we're scared, even if we don't always dare holding our cameras to officials' faces. The lack of images, the lack of evidence, that's even scarier."
