This hypnotic exploration of a family’s psychological turmoil under the shadow of Thai history won the FIPRESCI Prize in this year’s IFFR competition.

Taiki Sakpisit’s debut feature slips between two moments in Thailand’s turbulent past. It begins on the eve of the 2006 military coup, with a woman farewelling her husband before he is smuggled out of the country, then flashes back to her life as a young girl in the 1970s – as student uprisings threaten the stability of the country and her family. We witness the woman in her various lives as a daughter, mother and wife; we also encounter scenes at once mysterious and menacing: a shady dinner, a tortured body, a dilapidated mansion, soldiers moving through a field.

Sakpisit synthesises his visual-art background and innovative short-filmmaking practice in this tale of personal and national trauma, creating an ethereal shadow world of monochrome shots and sinister soundscapes in which his characters seem suspended in time. Poetic, poignant and layered, The Edge of Daybreak is an arresting, visually striking feature debut.

“A hypnotic and meditative journey that uses four decades of political turmoil as the backdrop for a more familial tragedy … Sakpisit demonstrates an innate knack for bringing the inner world to visual life.” – The Reel Bits