Mr. Uruphong Raksasad, a graduate student from Department of Film and Video, Faculty of Communication Arts, and best known for his award as one of the best directors at “ The 20th Thailand National Film Association Awards (Suphannahongse)”, was presented with an international FIPRESCI Award as the Best Premiere for his semi-documentary film, The Songs of Rice, in the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) which took place at Rotterdam , Netherlands. His semi-documentary film, overwhelmingly voted by critics and mass media groups, citing magnificent creative ideas as the main reason for the award.
The Songs of Rice is a documentary feature film, demonstrating how Thai farmers produce rice. In this lyrical film, the rice growing cycle is given a musical accompaniment - from the moment the crop is planted in endless, moist fields beneath spectacular cloudy skies until the cooked rice is shared out in temples. The of rice, songs about harvesting and preparing it—some simple, some accompanied by an exuberant film clip.
Mr. Uruphong is film presents various songs praising the qualities also one of the creators of a series of short films “Telling Cheating Stories”, presented jointly by the Artist Network for Reformation and Thai PBS to expose corruption incidents in Thai society. One of his well-known works, Chiengrai 0250, was also broadcast, relating the lives of farmers affected by the Water Resource Development, the project managed by the Land Development Department. It was presented in the Program “Telling Cheating Stories,” which was part of the series, “Thai People—Outcome—Cheating?” on Thai PBS in 2013.