Thai director, screenwriter, producer and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul will lead the international competition jury at the 65th Locarno Film Festival.

Weerasaethakul, known as ‘Joe,’ won the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and his other films include the recent Headshot and 2006’s Syndromes And a Century. At Cannes this year, he presents documentary Mekong Hotel as a special screening.

Artistic director Olivier Père said: “In just a few magnificent films, over the last 20 years Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been a major revelation in world cinema. The Thai filmmaker, whose poetic and dreamlike films blend his country’s national legends, a sensual feel for the physical and natural world as well as new narrative and visual styles borrowed from contemporary art, has invented a mutant form of cinema that completely overturns our viewing habits and takes us into unexplored areas that verge on the sublime”.

Locarno runs Aug 1-11.

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