A round of applause to welcome our Director in Focus, Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit! We were honoured to have him join us for a talk and meet Hong Kong cinephiles.

Nawapol noted that there was no Film school in Thailand 20 years ago. It was very difficult to work in the film industry, let alone become a director. Therefore, he majored in Chinese, hoping to enrich himself with more knowledge. Later, as Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who came from an architecture background, became wider known, he realised even without a background in filmmaking, he could also make a film. He was also grateful for meeting “The Master”, allow him to be aware of the different forms and shapes of film. Apart from Titanic, we also have Abbas Kiarostami, story of a normal person could also be turned into a great movie.

Talking about his debut feature 36, he shared that the team consisted of less than 10 people. He even casted his own friends. At first, he planned to shoot a short film, but the edited result was longer than expected. Still, everyone was satisfied with the end result, his debut feature was then born. The producer suggested him to submit the film to Busan International Film Festival. To his surprise, he brought home the New Currents Award. The film also won him the New Talents Award at HKAFF.

Being both the director and producer himself, the work of Nawapol always look into the nuance of daily life, accompanied with a sense of humour. When asked about the arrangement of punchline and the rhythm, he replied that he never intentionally arranged any of those. He enjoyed observing people in absurd situation and not knowing how to deal with it, or attempting to solve a problem but always missing the chance to. He added that there was bizarre news in Thailand every day, and joked that perhaps this was the natural expression of Thai.