PROGRAMME
THAI STUDENT
Thai Student Documentary Pitching Competition
Submission Deadline: 30 JUNE 2026 at 23:59 (GMT +7)
The Thailand Student Documentary Pitching Competition is a pitching and mentorship platform for emerging student documentary filmmakers in Thailand. Selected participants will develop their projects through workshops and mentoring sessions with filmmakers and documentary professionals before presenting their ideas during the festival.
Four selected projects will receive partial production grants of 50,000 THB each to further develop and produce their documentaries after the festival.
The program aims to support a new generation of documentary storytellers and encourage the development of contemporary non-fiction projects in Thailand.
THAI STUDENT : MENTORS
Nontawat Numbenchapol
Biography
Nontawat Numbenchapol was born in 1983 and raised in Bangkok. He is a Thai film director and television screenwriter widely recognized for his documentary work. Nontawat graduated from the Department of Visual Communication Design, Faculty of Art and Design, Rangsit University.
In 2013, Nontawat directed his first documentary feature, Boundary, which received funding from the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) and Arts Network Asia. The film presents the previously untold perspectives of people living along the Thai-Cambodian border. He won the Best New Director award from the Bangkok Critics Assembly, and Boundary was screened at numerous prestigious international film festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.
That same year, he released his second documentary, By the River, recounting the story of the Klity villagers affected by lead contamination in their water supply. The film made history as the first Thai film to receive a Special Mention at the Locarno International Film Festival. In 2016, Nontawat created the hybrid documentary-fiction film #BKKY, which tells the story of "Jojo," a teenage girl questioning her life and identity. The character of Jojo was developed from interviews with 100 teenagers in Bangkok about love, dreams, and transitioning to adulthood after high school. The film premiered in October 2016 at BIFF before winning the Best Feature Jury Award at the Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg in Germany. Also in 2016, he began researching the Thai-Myanmar border and the Shan ethnic group. This research led to two film projects: Soil Without Land, his fourth documentary feature, which won an award at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF), and Doi Boy, his first fiction feature. Doi Boy premiered at BIFF and later won Best Screenplay at the Kom Chad Luek Awards and Best Picture from the Bangkok Critics Assembly.
Nontawat's upcoming project is Chompoo: Lost & Forgotten, Netflix Thailand's first true-crime documentary. The film investigates the shocking case of "Nong Chompoo," a 3-year-old girl found dead on Phu Lek Fai mountain in Mukdahan province. A compelling element of the documentary is the unexpected on-screen appearance of "Lung Pol" (the uncle-in-law), who
became the primary defendant in the case.
Beyond cinema, his art exhibition Mr. Shadow and solo exhibition The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Homehave been showcased internationally at venues such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Thailand, Para Site in Hong Kong, the Dhaka Art Summit in Bangladesh, the Vargas Museum in the Philippines, Gallery VER in Bangkok, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw,
Poland.
Tanwarat Sombatwattana
Biography
Sombatwattana is a producer and filmmaker based in Bangkok, Thailand. She has also worked as a researcher and project coordinator for projects and initiatives at Purin Pictures, Pop Pictures, and Electric Eel Films.
Aekaphong Saransate
Biography
Aekaphong Saransate is Thai film director/editor based in Bangkok-Songkhla.
His debut feature documentary, Breaking the Cycle (2024) is a gripping journey of Thailand’s political landscape through the first election after 5 years under military rule. The film premiered at the 31st Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and was nominated for Tim Hetherington Award at Sheffield DocFest.
His edited features include Soil Without Land (2019) and Hours of Ours (2024). Both films competed in international competition at Visions du Réel, and later were screened in several festivals worldwide.
Aekaphong also works as an assistant editor with Pailin Wedel, the first Thai Emmy award winner. His works with Pailin included The Trapped 13 (2022) and Heals (post-production)