A first-class honored graduate in English from Thammasat University and MA in journalism from Chulalongkorn University, Anchalee Chaiworaporn has spent her professional life in various disciplines, from being a social worker, a journalist, a full-time lecturer at Mahidol University, to a film critic and a film researcher. She started her journalistic career by reporting on social developmental news for a local alternative news agency and two English-language newspapers, Thailand Times and The Nation, before expanding to include the film and its related industry in 1994.

Despite the stagnant state of the Thai film industry, she kept on writing about Thai movies, which were considered “low-grade” by the public. Without any supports, she has, on a number of occasions, spent her personal savings to pursue her love of film. This included the trips to report on the annual international film events in Cannes and Berlin since 1995. Her passion was rewarded when she was commissioned to write for and contribute to the international film journal Variety in 1996.

AWARDS

In 1998, Anchalee was awarded a scholarship to further her second master degree in film studies at Southampton University in England where she met and studied with Pam Cook, one of the noted British film theorist. She completed her dissertation entitled “From Pan-Chineseness to Global Industry: the Transformation of John Woo's Works in Hollywood.”

Upon the return to home, she wrote her first Thai-language critic piece on Nonzee Nimibutr's Nang Nak. It won Thailand's 2000 Best ML Bunlua Thepphayasuwan Film Critic. In 2002, she was awarded another writing prize named Best MR Ayumongkol Article Writer, where she wrote the articles: The Ballad and Tragedy of Jandara, Nothing New in Postmodern Criticism, and John Woo and Post-Fordism.

In 2002-2004, Anchalee was granted two fellowships from Ford-supported Asian Scholarship Foundation and Nippon Foundation, to do research on women directors in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. She is now doing the same research on Singaporean and Thai women directors by her own savings.

With her both academic and industrial background in film, Anchalee has worked in different kinds of disciplines as follows:

FILM WRITING & CRITICISM

International Journals: The Art Magazine (Singapore), Cahier du Cinema (France), Cinemaya, Premier Korea, Variety (UK and USA), Asian Cinema (US) and etc.

Thailand Journals: Image, Matichon, Siam Rath.

Books: - Film In Southeast Asia: Religious Views (David Hanan ed), 2000

- Being and Becoming: The Cinema of Asia (Aruna Vasudev ed.), 2002

- Contemporary Asian Cinema: Popular Culture in a Global Frame (Anne Ciecko ed.), 2005

- Film Theory and Criticism, published by Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, 2005 (Thai).

Fore more books, please see http://www.thaicinema.org/biblio.asp

FILM FESTIVAL CONSULTANT

- Cannes' Critic Week since 2004

- consultant (ASEAN films), Venice International Film Festival, 2006.

- consultant, Far East Film Festival (Italy) since 2001.

JURY PARTICIPATION

• Documentary Jury, 2007 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czech Republic)

•  Main Competition Jury in 2006 World Film Festival of Bangkok (Thailand)

•  Main Competition Jury in 2006 Seoul International Film Festival (South Korea)

•  Head of Jury, NETPAC, in 2005 Black Nights Film Festival (Estonia)

•  Fipresci jury member in 2005 Hong Kong International Film Festival

•  Fipresci jury member in 2005 Bangkok International Film Festival

•  Head of Jury in Malaysia's 2004 Cyberjaya Digital Award

•  Official jury member in 2002 Bangkok Film Festival

•  Fipresci jury member in 2002 Pusan International Film Festival

TEACHING AND LECTURESHIP

- Speaker on Thai cinema at the University of Philippines (2003)

- Speaker on Thai cinema at Teater Utan Kayu in Indonesia (2004)

- Speaker on Thai cinema at HELP University, Malaysia (2004)

- Thai cinema show and lecture at International School of Film and Television, Cuba which was established by wellknown Nobel Prizewinner Gabriel Marquez. (2005)

- A course on "Seminar in Film Studies," Mahidol University, Salaya Campus.

RESEARCH

Anchalee is now working on the following research topics and essays:

- Violence in New Thai Cinema    (done) published with Asian Research Institute, Singapore.

- Early Cinema and Royalty         (Thai part is done)

- Generations and the Conflicting Representation of Identity in New Thai Cinema

- The Culture of Hitmen in Thai Cinema

- Ghost and Gender in Thai Horror

- The Question of National Cinema in Southeast Asia

- Women Directors in East Asia and Southeast Asia (the industrial side is done)

- 'Independent'?: How Not to Define Non-mainstream Filmmaking in Southeast Asia.

Apart from the film movement, Anchalee still continues helping developmental works. She used to work as an editor for Thai Development Support Committee, and an information officer for Help Age International, a guest speaker on rural development communication, and a translator for NGOs.