NYAFF’s 2023 Daniel A. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema will go to wunderkind Thai filmmaker Lee Thongkham for his outrageous action movie sendup, Kitty the Killer. After earning his bachelor’s degree in film production from Florida’s Full Sail University, Lee stayed in the Sunshine State, where he cut his teeth making commercial fare ranging from music videos to a feature film. Back in Thailand he established Thongkham Films during the throes of the pandemic and directed its inaugural feature, The Maid (2020). This gonzo horror movie became the first Thai Netflix Original Film. Next up was the Thai-Chinese kaiju movie, The Lake (2022), also directed by Lee. He then donned his producer’s hat for the insane slasher satire Night of the Killer Bears (2023). Thongkham Films has already proven a production powerhouse with several more ambitious projects in the pipeline.

Vithaya Pansringarm is a Thai actor best known for appearing in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives (2013). He is also known in Thailand as "Pu Vithaya." He graduated from the New York Institute of Technology, holds a 5th-degree Black Belt in the Japanese martial art of Kendo and is President of the Thailand Kendo Club. In 2014, he won Best Actor at the Shanghai International Film Festival for his role in The Last Executioner (2014). Other hallmarks of his prolific filmography include Operation Mekong (2016), A Prayer Before Dawn (2017), Paradox (2017) with Louis Koo and Tony Jaa, and Deliver Us From Evil (2020). He will be at NYAFF with Kitty the Killer.