Writer/Director/Producer

Parida Tantiwasadakran is an award-winning Thai-American writer-director whose films have premiered at multiple festivals around the world, including Slamdance, Short Shorts & Asia, and the Chicago Children’s International Film Festival.

Her UCLA thesis film “Young People, Old People & Nothing in Between” won Best Live Action Short at deadCenter Film Festival where it became Oscar-qualified for the 2024 Academy Awards, among other international awards in Vancouver, Berlin, and Busan. The film premiered on NOWNESS, was distributed in Japan and Taiwan, and featured on RogerEbert.com.

As a sound mixer, Parida worked on Sierra Falconer’s debut “Sunfish,” which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Parida is the recipient of The Adrienne Shelly Foundation Award (past recipients include Chloé Zhao, Dee Rees, and Ana Lily Amirpour), the UCLA Graduate Council Diversity Fellowship, the Carl David LGBTQ Fellowship, and the Foreign Language Studies Fellowship bestowed by the U.S. Department of Education. As an undergraduate, her writing was published in “Quarto,” the school’s literary magazine, which has featured the work of J.D. Salinger, Louise Glück, and William Carlos Williams throughout its history. She holds an MFA in Directing from UCLA and a BA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

Cinematographer

Chananun Chotrungroj is a Los Angeles–based Thai Director of Photography known for crafting emotionally resonant and visually striking imagery across narrative films, documentaries, and television. Her work spans international and independent cinema as well as acclaimed streaming productions, defined by a deep sensitivity to story and character. Her recent projects include “Birth/Rebirth” (2023), which premiered at Sundance and earned three Independent Spirit Award nominations; “Palm Trees and Power Lines” (2022), winner of the Directing Award at Sundance; and Netflix’s “The Trapped 13: How We Survived the Thai Cave” (2022), nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award.

A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Chotrungroj earned her MFA in Film, where she received both the Ang Lee Fellowship and a Department Fellowship. She is a two-time recipient of the Nestor Almendros Award for Outstanding Cinematography by a Woman (2013 and 2015), and her work has earned recognition including a 2020 Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Cinematography for “The Third Wife” (2018), directed by Ash Mayfair. She also won the Best Cinematography Award at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival for “Materna” (2020).

In recognition of her achievements and contributions to cinema, Chotrungroj was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a member of the Cinematographers Branch, Class of 2024.

Lead Actress/ Co-Producer

Arkira Chantaratananond is a Thai-American actress based in Los Angeles. She has been the lead actress of several nationwide narrative projects, including an upcoming major horror studio feature, Lionsgate/Apple TV+ series, CHINESE SCHOOL, a feature backed by the Sundance feature film program, THE PLAN (dir: Jess Barr, Madhouse Productions) and DOWNBEAT (dir. Danny Madden). Her supporting roles include TWINLESS (dir. James Sweeney, Paramount) PARADISE RECORDS (dir. Logic), and THE NIGHT ALWAYS COMES (dir. Benjamin Caron, Netflix) opposite Vanessa Kirby.

Her commercial credits include principal roles in national and Superbowl spots with household names such as Disney, Volkswagon, McDonald’s, and AT&T while her modeling collaborations include global names like Adidas and Dr. Martens.

Arkira is a masters-level acting student at the Ivana Chubbuck Studio. She has completed advanced performing improv training through UCB, and she graduated from Stanford University with both her Bachelor’s (computer science) and Master’s (music and video game design) before turning 21.

When she is not acting, Arkira loves learning new things. She is obsessed with skateboarding/hip hop/surfing, playing viola, practicing Spanish, Thai, or Chinese, and making art out of trash she finds on the street.

Production Designer

Prairie T. Trivuth is a Los Angeles based Thai ADG Local 800 Set Designer, and an independent production and scenic designer for stage and film. She is influenced by her training and background in architecture, where her goal has been to uncover an archetypal solution while exploring all possible morphologic directions, and at the same time to revel in the act of detangling a constellation of relationships between all things in humanity’s everyday lives as portrayed through written words and music. She is interested in the raw totality of tectonics and how a minimalistic but striking drive behind design and construction can impact the shape of the encompassing force within a narrative piece. To apply such a paradigm to design for performances, Prairie reaches for a visual clarity that emphasizes the fleeting moment where, for truth to emerge within the beholder, realism can harmonize with artistic intention.

Make-Up & SFX Artist

Hatti Rees AKA XAiLA, is a multi-disciplinary British Makeup-Artist, SFX Artist and Artist based in Los Angeles. Hatti specializes in Hollywood SFX predominantly in the narrative space. Since graduating from the Womenswear course at Central Saint Martins, Rees has done many editorials for magazines such as Vogue, PAPER, King-Kong, LOVE and DAZED. Hatti also worked as a beauty editor for LOVE magazine and as a design intern at Marc Jacobs ITL NY. Driven by a need to disrupt identity, Rees creates characters that challenge identity, gender and sexuality. In their Dazed Beauty Artist Profile, Rees attributes their 'chameleon-like personas' to a need for fluid expression. Hatti has worked with an extensive roster including NLE Choppa, Doechi, Juice WRLD, Sabrina Carpenter, Armie Hammer, Roddy Rich, Orville Peck, M.I.A, Tommy Genesis, Dorian Electra, Kim Petras and Charli XCX.