{"id":72333,"date":"2025-06-13T11:55:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jun\/13\/a-useful-ghost-recognised-in-cannes-thai-director-hopes-film-stirs-political-debate-at-home"},"modified":"2025-06-13T11:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:55:27","slug":"a-useful-ghost-recognised-in-cannes-thai-director-hopes-film-stirs-political-debate-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=72333","title":{"rendered":"A Useful Ghost: Recognised in Cannes, Thai director hopes film stirs political debate at home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The film, about a women who dies and whose spirit returns by possessing a vacuum cleaner, explores power and political oppression in Thailand<\/p>\n<p>When Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke became the first Thai director to win the Critics Week\u2019s Grand Prize in May, he paid an unusual tribute. \u201cI would like to dedicate this award to all the ghosts in Thailand,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n<p>Ratchapoom\u2019s film, A Useful Ghost, tells the story of a man whose wife dies after falling ill from dust pollution, and whose spirit returns by possessing a vacuum cleaner. It is a quirky story full of symbolism and dark humour that explores power and political oppression in Thailand.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jun\/13\/a-useful-ghost-recognised-in-cannes-thai-director-hopes-film-stirs-political-debate-at-home\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The film, about a women who dies and whose spirit returns by possessing a vacuum cleaner, explores power and political oppression in ThailandWhen Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke became the first Thai director to win the Critics Week\u2019s Grand Prize in May, he&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":888,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,2654,506,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-cannes-film-festival","category-film-industry","category-thailand"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/888"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72334,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72333\/revisions\/72334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}