Constructing Realities: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinema

This was a student workshop with Thai independent Film Director, Screenwriter, and Producer, Anocha Suwichakornpong.

 

 

Anocha Suwichakornpong is a filmmaker whose work is informed by the socio-political history of Thailand. Her thesis film, GRACELAND became the first Thai short film to be officially screened at Cannes Film Festival. MUNDANE HISTORY, her first feature, won numerous awards including the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. BY THE TIME IT GETS DARK, Anocha’s second feature, which centers around a student massacre that took place in 1976 by Thai state forces in Bangkok has been screened in festivals such as Locarno, Toronto, and Rotterdam. The film won Best Picture and Best Director at Thailand National Film Awards and was chosen as Thailand’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.

 

Anocha founded the Bangkok-based production house, Electric Eel Films and co-founded the non-profit Purin Pictures. Through these organizations, she supports emerging voices in independent Southeast Asian Cinema.

 

Anocha is a Prince Claus Laureate, DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Residency, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency recipient. She was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University from 2018-2020. Her latest film, COME HERE, premiered at Berlinale 2021. In 2022, Anocha directed her first live performance, FREETIME, commissioned by the Walker Art Center. She received the Creative Capital Award in 2024 for her upcoming film, FICTION. Anocha currently teaches directing in the MFA Film Program at Columbia University.