Anocha Suwichakornpong (Thai: อโนชา สุวิชากรพงศ์, born 1976) is a Thai independentfilm director, screenwriter and producer. She is currently Professor of Film at Columbia University, where she advises thesis students in the MFA Film Program and teaches film directing.[1] She was formally Visiting Lecturer on Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University.[2]
Her films have been the subject of retrospectives at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York; TIFF Cinematheque, Toronto; Cinema Moderne, Montreal; and Olhar De Cinema, Brazil, among others.[4] Her work, informed by the socio-political history of Thailand, has received international critical acclaim and numerous awards.
"Pioneering a mode of intellectual feminist filmmaking, courageously and convincingly challenging hegemonic practices and established conventions, both in filmmaking and in society."
She co-founded her production company, Electric Eel Films, in Bangkok in 2006.[12] In 2017, she co-founded Purin Pictures, a film fund that supports independent cinema in Southeast Asia, offering much needed assistance in a region that lacks adequate governmental support.[13]
Anocha's debut feature, Mundane History (Jao nok krajok, เจ้านกกระจอก), is a family drama about the friendship that develops between a young paralyzed man from a wealthy Bangkok family and his male nurse from Isan in the north of Thailand. The film is also a commentary on Thailand's class-based society and the frailty of life.[15] It was screened at several festivals, and won the Tiger Award at the 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam.[16]