Each year, between 800-1,000 children in Thailand are born with Down's syndrome, a genetic condition associated with physical growth delays and moderate intellectual disability.
This sizeable number triggered the curiosity of Wongthanong Chainarongsingha, a publisher of A Day magazine. Last year when Wongthanong travelled to Italy, he saw several people with Down's syndrome in various cities, living what seemed like a normal life. It was then that he realised this wasn't the case in Thailand, where he rarely sees them in public places.
This was how Wongthanong came up with the idea of The Down, a documentary that focuses on the life of young people with Down's syndrome and their families.
"I found that their parents don't feel comfortable taking their kids [who have Down's syndrome] outside the house," says Wongthanong, who appears in the film as a narrator and also serves as executive producer. "I want to create a work that speaks to the public to help them understand Down's syndrome people more, and at the end of the day, they should have a space in society."
The original plan was to make a television documentary, but Wongthanong thought expanding the project into a movie would grab more attention and deliver the message more powerfully. The Down follows the life of five young people with Down's syndrome and offers an uplifting and often cheerful message about their everyday joy and sorrow, happiness and struggles. Their parents, all of them models of fighting spirit, are also prominent in the story.
This is not the first time people with Down's syndrome have appeared in Thai films. In the past though, their roles were often limited to comedy. The best example is the late Sayan Meungjarern, better known as Sayan Doksadao, most popular for minor parts in various movies like Buppha Rahtree (2003), The Bodyguard (2004) and Headless Hero 2 (2004). He was also the main character in Woak Wak (2004), a crude political satire. Most of the time, Sayan played the role of clowns. There was also a drama called Er-Rer (a play on the Thai word meaning "slow-witted"), about a family raising a child with Down's syndrome.
Unlike these titles, The Down features people with Down's syndrome in an honest and no-nonsense way. The five people featured are aged between 19-26, coming from various family backgrounds, each with their own successful story to tell.
Most prominent is Kamonporn "Pan" Wachiramon, a 24-year-old who graduated with a bachelor's degree from Bangkok University and is now working in a customer relations department at AIS Corporation. As told in the film, her mother at first wanted to enrol her into a vocational school, thinking that it was best for someone with her condition, but Pan insisted on going to college -- and she proved that she could.
The only boy in the movie is 25-year-old Sutthiphot "Bank" Kanoknak, who is working at Uniqlo. In The Down, we hear his supervisor reveal that she was initially shocked to be assigned a member of staff that had Down's syndrome. But after the training, Sutthiphot showed that he could work alongside his colleagues in the store with no problem.
At 26, Siriluck "Beer" Chalat is the oldest person in the film. Working as a waitress at a Starbucks, she supports her two younger brothers who are still in school, while her father works as a motorcycle taxi driver.
"Someone told me that I'm a person with special needs but I don't take it serious," she said in the film. "I can do what others can."
Lastly, the film features students Ornipa "Aom" and Atiya "Aun" Kanjanasiri, 19-year-old twins raised by a single mum. One of the best lines in The Down comes from her.
"When I look at the twins, I keep telling myself that I cannot get sick, I cannot die, and I cannot have a day off," the mother says. "But since I know it's impossible, I tried my best raising them."
It took the team a year to make the movie. Wongthanong said that finding the subjects wasn't easy because some families refused to be filmed.
While the film recounts the struggles every family with a person who has Down's syndrome goes through, in all the film is a feel-good piece that aims to inspire. One common thing Wongthanong said he found in his characters was their innocence and how they managed to teach him a few lessons along the way.
One of which occurred on a day that he and the team travelled from Bangkok to Phetchaburi to film the twins playing bocce, the popular sport among Special Olympics' athletes. It turned out that on that day, the two girls were not in the mood to be filmed and didn't want to talk to anyone. The team ended up heading back to Bangkok -- a seven-hour journey and not a minute used in the film.
"I could've been very upset because I was a perfectionist," said Wongthanong. "But these twins taught me that success is not the only thing in life."
Filming intellectually-disabled people is never easy. The line between championing them and exploiting them is always a fine one, especially given the way disabled people are often treated as a joke at worst and an object of sentimentalism at best in some Thai media. Wongthanong said that one of his biggest concerns was how to make the movie fun, without making fun of his characters.
"We tried to be very careful," he said. "We sought advice from experts, doctors, teachers as well as parents. One of the things we were most concerned about was the humour in the movie. We avoided presenting the jokes that felt like we were looking down on them. The giggle moments always came from cuteness and pure innocence."
Wipada Sumniangpaibul, the mother of Sutthiphot, said that she was willing to let the team film her son because the movie only portrayed the routine in his daily life. She also said that she hoped the film would encourage other parents of Down's syndrome children who might never think about taking their children outside the comfort zone, or providing them with education.
"If they see that my kid can go out and do things, they might have the courage to do the same," said Wipada. "And the best part of this is that my son, who always dreamed of becoming an actor, had the chance to be in a movie. That made him so happy."
Wipada says that she only wishes that others would treat Down's syndrome people, her son included, just like they treat normal people.
"When I take my son out, some people stare at him, some gossip, but I don't really care," she said. "But in general, I want people to treat those with Down's syndrome just as they do other human beings. Yes, he's a slow learner -- when he was little, it sometimes took me one week to teach him one character from the Thai alphabet. But I have to raise him like he's normal because when my husband and I are no longer here, he will be able to live in society happily."
To Wonthanong, the film about Down's syndrome people may actually be about something else: all of us.
"It seems like people only hang out with those they have something in common with, or with those from a higher background. For those who're considered 'lower', they're alienated. People with Down's syndrome are mostly categorised as the latter," said Wongthanong.
"I believe that the film will change people's opinions towards those with Down's syndrome. I hope we all will become more open-minded."
The Down is now in cinemas nationwide.
Pan works in customer relations for AIS.
Twins Ornipa 'Aom' and Atiya 'Aun' Kanjanasiri.
The twins playing bocce.
Sutthiphot 'Bank' Kanoknak.