Manit Worachat

On the road from Phayao towards Lampang, in Ngao, there is a small film museum run by Manit Worachat. Thanks to Ajarn Pawin, I had the chance to meet him there.

Manit grew up around cinema and eventually became a live film dubber, travelling around Thailand with outdoor film units during the era of nang khai ya—free screenings sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, where the film would occasionally stop so the troupe could sell medicine to the audience. Manit would dub the characters live, sometimes switching between several voices during the same film.

A few weeks before meeting him, I had watched Once Upon a Star on Netflix, which tells the story of one of these travelling cinema troupes. The film’s main character, Chief Manit, was inspired in part by Manit’s own life. It was strange to suddenly meet the real person behind a world I had only just discovered through the film.

As live dubbing and film projection began to disappear, Manit started preserving what he could. His Outdoor Film Museum is filled with old projectors, film reels, scripts and vintage posters collected over decades. He even still has an old travelling cinema vehicle with its projector inside.

When we visited, Manit took us through the collection, telling stories as he went. At one point he sat behind one of the old projectors and gave us a live dubbing demonstration, changing voices as the characters appeared on screen.

I went there to photograph him, but ended up getting a small performance as well.