The debut feature from director Sorayos Prapapan openly satirises Thailand’s education system and its authoritarian policies while also slyly referencing the country’s real-life “Bad Student” protest movement. Young math whiz Arnold seems very much the model student, enjoying an ideal high school life in all its cheery banality. Arnold’s ennui leads him to fall in with an exam cheating scheme, while greater student discontent bubbles to the surface around him — and eventually bursts. Showing a steady hand despite his “first feature” status, Sorayos adeptly balances an irreverent tone with urgent social concerns, and uses real protest footage to seamlessly lift his fictionalised satire into something significantly more.

* Winner of HKAFF2022 New Talent Award