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.
In 1983, he became the first person in Thailand to be awarded an honorary doctorate in Communication Arts by Chulalongkorn University. In 1987, he was the first director to be honored by Thailand's National Culture Commission as the National Artist for Dramatic Arts (Motion Pictures).
Vijit died in 1997 at the age of 75.
In 2005, the Bangkok International Film Festival included four films by Vijit in a retrospective - My Dear Wife, Mountain People, A Son of the Northeast and his Vietnam War-era drama, Boon Rawd.
The festival catalog noted that "Vijit Kunawut is regarded today as a master of the Thai motion picture industry - one of the greatest inspirations to later generations of filmmakers, praised as a genius of directing, screenwriting and editing. What makes his films special is not sophisticated technique, but an exceptional clarity and concision."
