The Bangkok Post reported on May 25:

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who goes by Joe) gained recognition at film festivals around the world over the years, wining the 2004 jury prize in Cannes for Tropical Malady about gay lovers and a trek to find a metamorphosed tiger. Two years earlier, he gained the festival's Un Certain Regard section's top prize for Blissfully Yours. Uncle Boonmee was one of 19 films vying for the Palme d'Or, one of the most prestigious awards in cinema. It was only the sixth Asian film to win Cannes' top prize in the festival's seven-decade history. Read more here.

Film-maker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has made history by winning the Palme d'Or [an equivalent to Best Picture] at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival with his film Loong Boonmee Raluek Chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives).

The film is the first from Southeast Asia to win the world's most prestigious film award.

The nine-member jury led by Tim Burton, director of this year's Alice in Wonderland, handed the top prize to Uncle Boonmee amid loud cheers from international journalists who rooted for the dark horse from Thailand.

"This is surreal," Mr Apichatpong, 40, said in his acceptance speech. "I thank all the ghosts and spirits in Thailand that made this possible."

Uncle Boonmee, the most narrative-driven of Mr Apichatpong's films, shows the possible coexistence between humans, ghosts, spirits and animals.

In the story about a northeastern beekeeper who is dying from kidney disease and who is visited by the spirit of his dead wife, the film alludes to the troubled history of the Northeast, the communist uprising, the reincarnation of body and soul, and also provides a meta-thesis on the death and rebirth of cinema through a subtly comical and mystical narrative.

"The world is getting smaller and more westernised, more Hollywood-ised and this is a film where I felt I was watching from another country. It was using fantasy elements but in a way I'd never seen before so I just felt it was like a beautiful, strange dream." – Tim Burton on Uncle Boonmee winning the Palme d'Or.