Photo: Thachan.makan / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a filmmaker I admire for refusing every commercial shortcut. The Bangkok-born director won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and his work drifts dreamily between memory, myth and the waking world until your sense of time goes soft. He's also an installation artist, which makes him hard to categorize at all, working far outside the conventional studio system. Watching him, I get the feeling I've been led into a private universe rather than handed a plot. It's exactly this kind of uncompromising, boundary-blurring artist who pushes Asian cinema onto the world stage, and I respect him enormously for it.
Overview
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thai: อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; RTGS: Aphichatphong Wirasetthakun; IPA: [ʔà.pʰí.tɕʰâːt.pʰōŋ wīː.rá.sèːt.tʰà.kūn], born 16 July 1970) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, film producer and Professor at Tama Art University in Tokyo. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, Apichatpong has directed several features and dozens of short films.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- Name (Japanese)
- アピチャートポン・ウィーラセータクン
- Reading
- あぴちゃーとぽん・うぃーらせーたくん
- Born
- July 16, 1970 (age 55)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Cancer / Dog
- Origin
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- film director / film producer / screenwriter / installation artist / director
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Khon Kaen University
Awards & achievements
- 2014 Yanghyun Prize
- 2011 Officer of Arts and Letters
- 2013 Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize
- 2004 Jury Prize
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Film director — see all → · Film producer — see all → · More people from Thailand →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.