Director Pailin Wedel Talks About Her Film 'Hope Frozen' [Season 3, Episode 67]

A bit of self-promotion first - we're happy to see that the
Bangkok Podcast was chosen as one of 2019's top 25
expat podcasts over at Feedspot. A great honor! Now
to the show...


Greg and Ed are psyched to sit down with Pailin Wedel, a
Thai-American journalist and filmmaker based in Bangkok, about
her new film "Hope Frozen." Pailin talks a bit about her
background as a journalist making short documentary pieces for Al
Jazeera and other news outlets. Her new film, however, sprang
from a chance meeting with a Thai family suffering an
extraordinary tragedy. In brief, the young daughter of a very
scientifically-minded Thai family was suffering from terminal
cancer, and the family made the decision to 'cryo-preserve' their
daughter in the hopes that she could possibly be revived in the
future with superior technology. 


Pailin saw the opportunity to tell a unique story, and
luckily the family agreed to be filmed. What ensued was a more
than two year process of following the family through the twists
and turns of this nightmare scenario, including sometimes
unflattering coverage in the Thai media. Pailin relates the tale
of making the film and the multiple cultural and religious
questions raised by the family's decisions. She details not only
the family's struggles, but also her own fight to find adequate
funding to do the story justice. 


The story of 'Hope Frozen' reached an incredible (and
thoroughly unexpected) climax when the film won the highest award
at North America's largest documentary film festival, HotDocs.
Listen in for Pailin's first hand account of discovering and
telling this amazing story, and make sure to follow its
continuing journey on the Hope Frozen Facebook
page.


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