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Filmmaker's Exile: A Diary of Survival and Bureaucracy
5 Feb
Summary
- A filmmaker escaped repression, only to face bureaucracy in the West.
- The film 'Unerasable!' is a personal, poetic diary of survival.
- The movie confronts civil liberties limits and inner colonialism issues.
The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is showcasing 'Unerasable!', a film by Socrates Saint-Wulfstan Drakos that serves as a refuge for cinematic voices. The movie details the journey of CP, an independent filmmaker who fled his Southeast Asian home in 2018 after being tortured for pro-democracy activism.
CP's escape led him to Thailand, where he lived undocumented for five years before seeking a more dignified life in the West. However, his relocation brought him into a new struggle with bureaucratic systems. The film is described as an urgent, courageous, and poetic bricolage diary.
Director Drakos described the film as a personal project, born from a deep emotional response to CP's story of survival and erased memory. Filmed across Thailand and Sweden, 'Unerasable!' utilizes found footage and recycled cinematic history to explore themes of memory, censorship, and rupture.
The film premiered at IFFR on February 4th, 2026, where CP watched it and became emotional, particularly during scenes about his family and his life in Sweden. Drakos hopes the film will help CP move forward and travel the festival circuit.
