Born in 1922 in Chachoengsao, Thailand, Vijit Kunawut graduated from Vajiravudh College in 1946 and started working as a journalist under the pen name Kunawut. He broke into film in 1950, when he was offered the villain's role in Fa Kamnod. From there, he worked as a screenwriter, writing the dialogue for an adaptation of Wannaboon Withayakom's Phrom Bandan. His first screenplay was Santi-Vina. In 1978 he wrote and directed the drama, My Dear Wife. Next he wrote and directed Mountain People, a docu-drama about Thailand's hill tribes. It is one of his best regarded films. But his most well-known, critically acclaimed film is 1982's A Son of the Northeast, which was shot in a similar documentary style, depicting hard-scrabble life in Thailand's rural northeast.
