Trespass Film Drama

On Monday the 11 August Aoife and I decide to make some film work for our Trespass project. We have been looking at derelict and undeveloped sites around The Land office in Chaing Mai.We have noticed one of the sites has what looks like a squatter settlement on it. There is temporary corrugated steel housing that has been put up and it looks like 20 or more people (families) are living there. We are told that these homes belong to construction workers. The construction company hires the site to accommodate there workers while they are building in and around Chaing Mai. There is much development going on in Chaing Mai, new restaurants, Spa's and Businesses are popping up all over the place, Rashanna tells us that even in the last 6 months she has seen a lot of new structures emerging. Chaing Mai has a growing tourist industry that is fueling this development. Suwan who is a Thai artist comes with us to help us with translation. The people on the site are moving from the site, they give us permission to film and agree to talk to us. 11 minutes into the filming a truck pulls up to help to load the goods and housing materials, I assume it is a friend of the people living on the site and carry on with the filming. The next thing a very angry woman gets out of the truck and shouts at us in Thai and tries to grab the camera. Suwan explains that she is the owner of the construction company and says we are not allowed to film here. She wants us to hand over the tape we say we will not and begin to leave, she pursues us. She is talking wildly on the phone calling for back up. We walk quickly towards a shopping center where we hope to lose her. The next thing a large white vehicle pulls up in front of us and a man jumps out and starts photographing us with his phone. He moves to hit Suwan and wants us to hand over the tape. We keep walking and go to a police station that is based in the shopping center, both the man and woman (husband and wife we later learn) are so wild with anger that it is impossible to talk to them. In the police station both ourselves and the construction company tell our stories. We are forced to record over the 12 minutes of footage for the sake of peace. Suwan explains that the construction workers are Burmese migrants and that the construction company has hired the workers illegally and so felt threatened by the filming. The female owner of the company says that her workers had not given us permission to film them. We do not tell her that the workers had in fact as we realise that their jobs may be threatened. The migrants live in a very precarious position here in Chaing Mai, glad to have work no doubt but up for exploitation at the same time.