Tom Waller

Tom Waller (full name Thomas de Warrenne Waller) was born in Bangkok to a Thai Buddhist mother and Irish Catholic father. He spent his formative years at a Benedictine monastery school in Yorkshire, England, before pursuing a career in film and television. After attending the Northern Film School in Leeds, England in 1995, he embarked on producing and directing his first feature film project Monk Dawson (1998) aka Passion for the Priest (US video title), based on the award-winning novel by Piers Paul Read. The film was theatrically released in 1998 to critical acclaim. After 5 years in London, Waller returned to his native Thailand in 2002 as a producer of independent feature films, with Butterfly Man (2002), Ghost of Mae Nak (2005), The Elephant King (2006) amongst the acclaimed titles produced through his production company De Warrenne Pictures. In 2008, he produced Thomas Clay's Soi Cowboy (2008) which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard. After producing assignments in Thailand on foreign films Bitter/Sweet (2009), Creation (2009) and the The Prince & Me: The Elephant Adventure (2010), Waller decided to return to his passion for directing with Sop-mai-ngeap (2011), his Thai language cinematic directorial debut. The film was nominated for 5 Thailand National Film Association awards including Best Picture and Best Director. In addition to directing again, he served as a producer on the English language debut of celebrated Thai director Prachya Pinkaew (Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003)) with the Hollywood action thriller Elephant White (2011) starring two time Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou and Golden Globe winner Kevin Bacon. In 2014, he produced and directed The Last Executioner (2014), a biopic on Thailand's last prison executioner, which won the prestigious 'Tukkata Tong' or Golden Doll awards for Best Picture, given by the Thai Entertainment Reporters Association. The film also earned him Best Director at the Dhaka Internati