Visra Vichit-Vadakan

San Francisco, California, USA

Visra Vichit-Vadakan is a filmmaker based in California and Bangkok. She was born in the United States (San Francisco) but moved to Bangkok with her parents at age 9. She graduated in biology and education from the University of Stanford, and completed her film education at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Her granddaughter is Luang Wichitwathakan, a Thai politician, historian, novelist and playwright. Vichit-Vadakan married a fellow Stanford University grad in 2010, Christopher Cox, who serves as chief of staff to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on product development and is responsible for its "family of apps": Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. She makes social-issue films that combine both documentary and fiction, since hopes to use her background in education and film to bring positive social change. She has made several short films that were previously screened in Rotterdam and her first feature film, 'Karaoke Girl', was based on the life of a young sex worker in Bangkok. It premiered in competition at the 'International Film Festival Rotterdam' and traveled to various festivals around the world. Visra also co-founded the 'Southeast Asia Fiction Film Lab', a script lab aimed to support Southeast Asian filmmakers by developing and advancing their scripts.