Vampire

• สัตว์วิกาล Sud Vikal Thailand / France 2008
  19 minutes / Digital, 16:9, Dolby 5.1 / Colour
• Director / Camera / Editor Apichatpong Weerasethakul
• Post Production Supervisor Lee Chatametikool
• Sound Chalermrat Kaweewattana
• Sound Designer Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
• Stills Chaisiri Jiwarangsan
• Assistant Director Suchada Sirithanawuddhi
• Trail Guide and Mountain Crew coordinator Tongsawat Srikamma
• Espace Louis Vuitton team Marie-Ange Moulonguet (Director), Ingrid Pux (Project Manager), Catherine Mancier (Production Assistant), Ange Leccia (Project Artistic Director)
• Production Kick the Machine, Bangkok; Louis Vuitton Malletier, Paris

Commissioned by Louis Vuitton for the exhibition Travelling, presented at L’Espace Louis Vuitton, Paris, 7 June – 31 August 2008. Other participating filmmakers were Carmen Castillo, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Edoardo Winspeare.

SOMEWHERE ALONG THE BORDER OF THAILAND AND BURMA LIVES A CREATURE CALLED NOK PHII (GHOST BIRD). OR THERE USED TO LIVE ONE.

If exists, apart from the Vampire Finch of the Galápagos Islands, Nok Phii would be the only species of bird that feeds on other animals’ blood. In several of the local tales, Nok Phii is portrayed as an aggressive nocturnal predator. In some stories, it even attacks human. In 2007, a sighting of a male and female Nok Phii in a remote mountain was reported by the villagers in the north of Thailand. There was a speculation that this was the only pair left in the world. This supposedly small with large eyes bird has never been captured, dead or alive. There are no remains. Without concrete evidence, this rare bird might only be an imaginary animal associated with alluring danger and mythical aura. VAMPIRE is a dream of the strange avian and its habitat, an impression of a voyage to capture this unusual
treasure on film.