Thailand｜2009｜DCP｜82’
In Thai with Eng sub
Winner of the Tiger Award at the 2009 IFF Rotterdam, director Anocha Suwichakornpong made her mark in Asian cinema and international festivals with this daring and original debut feature.
A young man named Ake is left paralysed from the waist down after an accident. Living in a staffed mansion with his cold father, the bitter and cynical Ake slowly lets down his guard as he forms a friendship with the new male nurse. Beyond observing the domestic routine and relationships, the film takes an unexpected turn to explore the evolution of life, and a person’s place in the world we live in, and the cosmos at large.
In the editing process, director Anocha and veteran filmmaker Lee Chatametikool spent months deconstructing and reassembling the script. Intercepting long, still takes with hard cuts of handheld shots both inject a sense of tension and intimacy to the film’s unconventional, non-linear narrative.
2009 New Currents Competition, Busan IFF
2010 Hivos Tiger Award, IFF Rotterdam
2010 Grand Prix, Vancouver IFF
2010 NETPAC Award, Golden Horse FF
Director
Anocha SUWICHAKORNPONG
Anocha SUWICHAKORNPONG is a filmmaker from Thailand. She graduated from an MFA film program at Columbia University. Her thesis short film, Graceland, was an official selection at Cannes Film Festival in 2006. Mundane History, her first feature, won numerous awards including the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. Her second feature, By the Time It Gets Dark (2016), premiered in Locarno and has screened in over 50 film festivals worldwide. The film won three Thailand National Film Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Also active as a producer, Anocha founded Electric Eel Films, a production house based in Bangkok. She has produced many short films and features, including Lee Chatametikool’s Concrete Clouds (2013). In 2017, Anocha, together with Visra Vichit-Vadakan and Aditya Assarat founded Purin Pictures, a film fund to support Southeast Asian cinema production, distribution, screenings, workshops, events, and other related activities.
Editor
Lee CHATAMETIKOOL
Active in both independent and mainstream cinema, adept Thai film editor Lee Chatametikool is a long-time collaborator with Palme d’Or-winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His notable works include Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Ten Years Thailand under the “Ten Years International Project” and Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai’s So Long, My Son, among others. In 2010, Lee Chatametikool founded his co-production company, White Light Post, and in 2013, made his directorial debut, Concrete Clouds. He was also the post-production manager in Call Me By Your Name. In recent years, Lee Chatametikool is devoted to supporting and collaborating with young filmmakers across Southeast Asia, and is the editor of films like Looking for Kafka from Taiwan, Nakorn-Sawan from Thailand, the Singaporean feature film Pop Aye, Ròm from Vietnam and many more.