ANOCHA SUWICHAKORNPONG
Founder | Director, Producer
Anocha Suwichakornpong is a filmmaker whose work is informed by the socio-political history of Thailand. Her films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York; TIFF Cinematheque, Toronto; Cinema Moderne, Montreal; and Olhar De Cinema, Brazil. By the Time It Gets Dark, Anocha’s second feature, centres around a student massacre that took place in 1976 by Thai state forces and far-right paramilitaries at Thammasat University in Bangkok. It premiered at Locarno Film Festival and was presented at festivals worldwide, including Toronto, BFI London, Viennale, and Rotterdam. By the Time It Gets Dark film won three Thailand National Film Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. In 2017, it was chosen as Thailand’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. Mundane History, her first feature, won numerous awards including the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. An allegory for the current political situation in Thailand, the film focuses on the relationship between a father and his paraplegic son. Her third feature, Krabi 2562, co-directed with British filmmaker Ben Rivers, explores a town in southern Thailand. The film also premiered at Locarno and is currently touring the festival circuit. Anocha received her MFA from Columbia University, with her thesis film, Graceland, becoming the first Thai short film to be officially selected by Cannes Film Festival.
In 2017, together with Visra Vichit-Vadakan and Aditya Assarat, she founded Purin Pictures, an initiative to support Southeast Asian cinema. Currently, Anocha is a visiting lecturer at the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University.
MAENUM CHAGASIK
Producer
After working as an assistant director for several Thai independent filmmakers, in 2011 Maenum Chagasik began producing the feature film In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire directed by Wichanon Somumjarn. That film was selected for Tiger Awards Competition at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2012. In 2016 she co-produced By the Time It Get Dark which was directed by Anocha Suwichakornpong. Her latest work, Krabi 2562, directed by Ben Rivers and Anocha Suwichakornpong, world premiered at Locarno International Film Festival 2019.
POM BUNSERMVICHA
Director, Producer
Pom Bunsermvicha graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Culture & Media. During her semester abroad in Prague, she attended FAMU and directed her 35mm short 10:10, which was shown at BFI Flare and Inside Out Toronto. Her thesis short film E-po (A Second Chance) premiered at LAAPFF 2018 and competed at the 34th Hamburg International Short Film Festival. Most recently, she participated at the Berlinale Talents 2019. Since 2015, she has concentrated her efforts in aiding the growth of independent cinema through her work with Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab (SEAFIC) and Purin Pictures.
MING KAI LEUNG
Director of Photography
Ming Kai Leung earned his MFA in film from Columbia University. He also attended Asian Film Academy, where he won the Best Performance Award as a cinematographer. His feature debut as a cinematographer, Mundane History, won the top prize Tiger Award at Rotterdam and competed at Plus Camerimage, the International Film Festival for the Art of Cinematography in Poland. Ming Kai's recent cinematography efforts include Old Stone, By The Time It Gets Dark, Murmur of The Hearts, and Invisible Spaces. His current project is a directorial debut called You Were There, which participated in the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion.
PARINEE BUTHRASRI
Producer, Director of Photography
Parinee Buthrasri is a producer and cinematographer based in Thailand. Parinee began her career at Electric Eel fIlms in 2009 as a still photographer on Mundane History. She has worked as a Line Producer and Production Manager on feature films by Anocha Suwichakornpong, Aditya Assarat, Lee Chatametikul, Kongdej Jaturanrasme and Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit. She is the producer of Anocha Suwichakornpong’s 3rd feature Come Here. Currently, Parinee is based in Prague, Czech Republic, where she pursues her MA in cinematography at Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU).
TULAPOP SAENJAROEN
Director, Artist
Tulapop is an artist/filmmaker whose works includes performance, video, and public projects. He holds an MFA from the Slade School of Art, University College London, and an MA in Aesthetics and Politics at the California Institute of Arts. Since 2009, he worked as an assistant DOP on Mundane History, associate producer and casting director on By The Time It Gets Dark, and second assistant director on Krabi, 2562. He also co-directed Nightfall with Anocha Suwichakornpong in 2016.
His most recent work, A Room With A Coconut View, had its world premiere at 71st Locarno Film Festival and won awards from Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Arkipel Festival Jakarta, Moscow International Experimental Film Festival, and Thai Short Film Festival.
AACHAREE UNGSRIWONG
Editor
Aacharee, formerly known as Machima, began her career as an assistant editor of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives after she participated in Reality Filmmaker, a film workshop organized by Electric Eel Films.
The first feature film she edited is In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire which went to compete for Tiger Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam. Then, she participated at the Tokyo Talent Campus and also the Kyoto Filmmakers' Lab. Later, she co-edited By the Time It Get Dark with Lee Chatametikool. The film won many national awards including Best Editing. In 2019, she edited Krabi 2562 which got premiered at Locarno Film Festival.
In addition to editing feature films, she edits international short films and commercial films. She has worked with brands like Chevrolet, Accenture and Agoda.
JOSH KIM
Director, Editor
Josh Kim is a Korean-American filmmaker whose debut feature, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time), premiered in the Berlinale Panorama in 2015. The Thai-language film won 21 international and local jury/audience awards and became Thailand’s official entry to the Academy Awards and Golden Globes for Best Language Foreign Film. Previously, Josh worked as a producer with John Woo on the Korean remake of A Better Tomorrow and has since directed videos for Apple, Google, NPR and the Wall Street Journal. He is currently working on a Chinese language sci-fi film adapted from the Hugo-award winning story, Folding Beijing.
WICHANON SOMUMJARN
Director
Wichanon Somumjarn began his university studies in Civil Engineering and ended up focusing on Mass Communications. While he was an engineering student, he made his short film Four Boys, White Whiskey and Grilled Mouse won Best Fiction Award at Tampere Film Festival in Finland in 2010. He decided to leave his studies to pursue his dream in the field of cinema. Somumjarn's first feature In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire competed at Rotterdam in 2012 in the Tiger Awards Competition section.