A film by
NARUEMON CHAINGAM
Hit by cancer in the backdrop of a global pandemic, as a young mother and filmmaker I rebuild through art, racing against time to set an exhibition and ignite conversation on an illness we prefer to ignore..
In this author-led film, I act as the guide to the story of cancer and womanhood in Thailand, the physical pains and anxiety all multiplied for survivors through the pandemic.
The
Unknown
An author-led feature documentary
A female-focus story
An impact film project and campaign
They said, “If you can manage to look past your own fear and everyone else’s expectations…the reward is your life.”
S y n o p s i s
As a filmmaker and survivor, I turn the lens on myself and other women who’ve faced cancer — to complete The Mirror Project, a living portrait of resilience. Through photography, art, and intimate storytelling, we reclaim our reflections, turning pain into connection and silence into awareness. This film and exhibition become our shared heartbeat — a call for early detection, and a tribute to life, loss, and the courage to begin again.
I reached for art to process the chaos
that has erupted around me and seek out other sufferers to open public discussion on a subject nobody likes to talk about.
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In this film, I am doing a photography project with these women, they have cancer, but a group of women is fighting back with positivity, frank conversations and creativity, as sickness robs them of their hair, not their femininity or spirit.
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For women, the cancer experience has a "mirror effect": what looks back is the same, but changed... weakened but stronger... wounded but defiant.
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​This female-focused story wants to ignite that conversation on womanhood, women's health, lifestyle and creative responses to fighting back.
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4 female photographers and 4 female patients, we will capture the strength of women living with cancer from all walks of life in Thailand – rich, poor, urban and rural, young and old – reclaiming their femininity as they balance their roles as mothers, daughters, wives, and workers while fighting a disease that attacks the very core of identity.
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The key message of their brave visual expression and conversation is 'pride to be heard and seen' as we tackle the stigma and taboo around cancer.
Approached artistically with tenderness and fun, this film will follow these young female patients and I, working through one of the hardest parts of the human experience.
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This film is not about dying - it’s about living.
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Our group shares precious time. None of us are going to waste it
I have been forced to reset and since learned a lot about my own fear, life, resilience, and our Thai country and culture.
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I am lucky to be cancer-free for now.
But this isn’t a story just about me, it is more a story about all of us, as an Asian society which in some ways is changing and modernizing but still has a long way to go before it knows how to care for itself.
I hope this film will make people laugh and cry but fundamentally ask big questions.
Questions about the access and quality of care for sickness in a country where cancer is one of our biggest killers.Questions about our struggle to talk as a society; the doctors' struggle to express empathy, the medical system that alienates us by cost and approach, and our lack of support for families - kids especially - who are left isolated by a parent’s illness.
So this time I want to put myself both in front and behind the camera to help open the awkward conversation on cancer. I hope the audience leaves the film enriched and empowered to take on the conversation.​
Director's note
" I’ve always found looking outside more interesting than looking in. I never thought I would have much to say as the subject of a documentary. But in 2020, my life was tipped upside down while the whole world was locked down."
Ploy, a mother and a film director
