Anocha Suwichakornpong is a filmmaker and producer. Her work is informed by the socio-political history of Thailand. By the Time It Gets Dark, Anocha’s second feature, centers around a student massacre that took place in 1976 by Thai state forces and far-right paramilitaries at Thammasat University in Bangkok. She graduated from an MFA film program at Columbia University. Her thesis film, Graceland, became the first Thai short film to be officially selected by Cannes Film Festival. Mundane History, her first feature, won numerous awards including the Tiger Award at Rotterdam. By the Time It Gets Dark premiered in Locarno and has screened in festivals such as Toronto, BFI London, Viennale, and Rotterdam. The film won three Thailand National Film Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. By the Time It Gets Dark was chosen as Thailand’s Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film.
Anocha founded Electric Eel Films, a production house based in Bangkok. She has produced many short films and features, including Wichanon Somumjarn’s In April the Following Year, There Was a Fire, Lee Chatametikool’s Concrete Clouds, and Josh Kim’s How to Win at Checkers (Every Time). In 2014, she was an artist-in-residence at Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Singapore. In 2016, Anocha served on the Jury for the Tiger Awards at International Film Festival Rotterdam.
In 2017, Anocha, together with Visra Vichit-Vadakan and Aditya Assarat founded Purin Pictures, an initiative to support Southeast Asian cinema. In 2019, she was named a Prince Claus Laureate. From 2018-2020, Anocha was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Harvard University. In 2020, Anocha received the Silpathorn Award from the Ministry of Culture, Thailand. Currently, Anocha is a fellow at DAAD artists-in-residence programme in Berlin.