TITLE: Red Light Jihad: Thai Vice Under Attack
PUBLICATION: GlobalPost
ROLE: Director of Photography | Co-Producer | Editor
DESCRIPTION: This piece was originally published by the Global Post on December 8, 2014 (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/thailand/141204/sin-city-fire-islamic-insurgency-thailand-party-town).
A short documentary on jihadi attacks against sleaze in Thailand’s southern borderlands. Much of the video focuses on Sungai Golok, a surreal sex tourism hotspot that Thailand’s tourism authorities don’t like to talk about. It’s a little bit Tijuana and a little bit Kabul — a party town raging in the middle of an Islamic insurgency.
Everything that makes Thailand notorious is there: booze, late nights and prostitution. In lieu of Western men, the city’s brothels attract guys from nearby Malaysia, where raunchy nightlife is forbidden under Sharia law. Each night, men wade into a conflict zone where guerrillas wage war to wrench free a new Islamic state. The hostilities have racked up more conflict deaths in the last decade than the Gaza Strip.
Co-Produced with Patrick Winn