Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul was born in 1970 in Bangkok, Thailand. He graduated with a degree in architecture from Khon Kaen University in 1994, then went on to study in the United States at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1999, he co-founded Kick the Machine Films, a company that would go on to produce several of his own films as well as other experimental Thai works. Working at the intersection of cinema and contemporary art, Apichatpong Weerasethakul creates installations, videos, and both short and feature-length films that are often non-linear and convey a strong sense of dislocation and otherworldliness. Through his manipulation of time and light, Weerasethakul builds delicate bridges for viewers to journey between the real and the mythical, the individual and the collective, the corporeal and the chimeric. Often set in rural Thai villages and forests, his films traverse deeply personal territory, inviting audiences into a subjective world of memory, myth, and profound longing. By using unconventional narrative structures, expanding and contracting the sensation of time, and playing with notions of truth and linearity, Weerasethakul’s work unfolds comfortably within a world of his own making. His artistic projects and feature films have garnered him wide recognition and numerous festival awards, including four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival: the Un Certain Regard Award for Blissfully Yours in 2002, the Jury Prize for Tropical Malady in 2004, the Palme d'Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in 2010, and the Jury Prize (ex aequo) for Memoria in 2021. He lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand.