THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Thank you for the memories

Thank you for the memories

Apichatpong Weerasethakul wins The Fukuoka Prize for Art and Culture

Thai filmmaker  Apichatpong Weera-sethakul is the among the laureates of the prestigious Fukuoka Prize in Art and Culture. 
A Fukuoka City representative handed the award to the director at the Siam Society last Friday. The official ceremony will be held in the Japanese city on next Monday.
The winner of the 2010 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Apichatpong is the seventh Thai to receive the Fukuoka Prize since it was established in 1990.
“Making a film is a way of storing my memories. I’m very proud to have won this prestigious award for those memories,” Apichatpong said.
According to an official statement from the prize-giving body, the Art and Culture award was given for his innovative method of “visual narration”, which has served as a standard-bearer for young artists with unconventional approaches to visual expressions, and been greatly inspirational to filmmaking circles across the world.
Introduced by the city of Fukuoka with the collaboration of academia and businesses in promoting the city as Japan’s cultural gateway, the award aims to promote understanding of the distinctive cultures of Asia.
Apichatpoing is among four other laureates this year.
Dr Tetsu Nakamura from Japan was awarded the Grand Prize for his devotion to medical treatment and local welfare in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Asian studies scholar Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki won the Academic Prize for her new way of exploring regional cooperation and mutual understanding that reaches beyond boundaries.
And another Art and Culture laureate, Indian artist Nalini Malani, was recognised for challenging today’s universal themes through large-scale spatial art.
Apichatpong will hand his 2006 short “The Anthem” to the Film Archive of Fukuoka City Public Library during his visit there next month. The Archive, which collects movies from several different countries, currently has 19 Thai films.
Other Thai laureates include late former prime minister and intellectual MR Kukrit Pramoj who won the Special Commemorative Prize in 1990. Late archaeologist and historian MC Subhadradis Diskul was awarded the Grand Prize in 1994 and historian Charnvit Kasetsiri won the academic prize in 2012.
Over the last 24 years, the Fukuoka Prize has been given to 279 people from 30 countries. They include the late film director Akira Kurosawa in 1990, Chinese director Zhang Yimou in 2000 and Nobel Peace prize awardee Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
 
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