British honors for Lee Chatametikool

Film editor Lee Chatametikool has won the Thailand Young Screen Entrepreneur award for 2008. The award is from the British Council in Bangkok. Lee goes on to compete with the winners from nine other countries for the 2008 International Young Screen Entrepreneur award in London in October.

According to a story in today's Daily Xpress, the judging panel was impressed by Lee’s international experience and outlook. “Lee demonstrated a clear understanding of the Thai film industry and how it can be developed, and also how he and Thai filmmakers could gain from the award”, the British Council's David Elliott is quoted as saying.

The owner of Houdini Studio in Bangkok, Lee Chatametikool's name should be known to anyone who appreciates Thai films enough to sit and watch the credits roll. He has been a frequent collaborator with director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, working on Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady. He won Best Editor at the inaugural Asian Film Awards in 2007 in Hong Kong for Syndromes and a Century. He has worked as a film editor, sound editor and production supervisor on around a dozen films by both Thai indie filmmakers as well as more commercial fare, including the 2004 Thai horror hit Shutter. His other credits include Pimpaka Towira's One Night Husband, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee's Midnight My Love, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves, Taweewat Wanta's Sperm and Aditya Assarat's Wonderful Town.

Lee studied filmmaking in the US. His first short film, 1999’s Miami Strips, Hollywood Dreams (Muang Maya, Krung Tida), was the runner-up for the RD Pestonji Award for Best Thai Short Film at the 2000 Thai Short Film & Video Festival.

Embedded below is a YouTube video of Lee talking about Syndromes and a Century at last year's Sarajevo Film Festival.

(Via Daily Xpress)