Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Lore & Background

Apichatpong Weerasethakul was born in Bangkok, Thailand, to a Thai Chinese family; both parents were physicians who worked at a hospital in Khon Kaen, while his grandparents came from Canton. He never learned to speak Chinese because his father, also a member of the House of Representatives, died when he was young. He grew up in a traditional Buddhist family exposed to rituals incorporating animism and Hinduism, which influenced the surrealist tones of his works. Early influences include the Dada movement and Joseph Cornell's 'boxes'. He earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from Khon Kaen University in 1994 and a Master of Fine Arts in filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1997.

Reader's Guide

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's significance lies in his ability to merge personal, cultural, and political themes within a highly distinctive cinematic language. His films, such as *Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives* and *Tropical Malady*, have garnered international acclaim and brought attention to Thai independent cinema. He co-founded the production company Kick the Machine in 1999, which supports his own works and Thai experimental films. His career has also been marked by censorship controversies, notably with *Syndromes and a Century*, which he withdrew from domestic release rather than comply with demands to remove scenes. This led to his involvement in the Free Thai Cinema Movement, opposing restrictive film ratings laws. His work extends to galleries and installations, and he received the 2016 Principal Prince Claus Award and the eighth Artes Mundi Prize. His first English-language film, *Memoria*, was released in 2021.

Did You Know?

• Friends and fans sometimes refer to him as 'Joe', a nickname adopted out of convenience for his long Thai name.
• His feature film *Syndromes and a Century* was the first Thai film to be entered in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.
• He co-directed *The Adventure of Iron Pussy*, a spoof of Thai films from the 1960s and 1970s, with artist Michael Shaowanasai.
• He served as a consultant on the Tsunami Digital Short Films, a series of 13 films commissioned as a memorial to the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.