Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The visual journey reflects on recent genocides: moments of erasure, violent flowers of forgetfulness. A metal tower allows viewers to observe the space from multiple vantage points. It is at once reminiscent of a rocket launch and of a platform for contemplating sunsets. From there, the visual landscape intersects with two storylines.

An intimate, deeply personal film featuring footage Weerasethakul shot of Swinton in and around her family home in Scotland, this overlapping split screen film is inspired by Margaret Tait’s film "Portrait of Ga" and the films of Hitchcock. The work that emerges is a meditative, dreamlike space - a haunting, transformative encounter blending past and present, presence and absence. Presented at the exhibition “Tilda Swinton: Ongoing” at Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.

This film featuring Tilda Swinton was shot early 2024, in a abandoned camp of the Kew Thab Yang Forest Preserve in Chiang Rai. The artist made two versions filmed by different cameras, resulting in two expressions. The first version, filmed with a Digital Harinezumi pocket camera, reflects a personal interest in low-resolution imagery as well as memory blending experiments. The second version was filmed on 35mm and is concerned with a playful shot/reverse between Tilda and the shadows of leaves dancing on a nearby wall.

Produced for the Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai, (2023), « Solarium » was inspired by a 1981 horror film, « The Sunken-Eyed Ghost », by Thai director Komarachun. This installation places the public in the mindset of the protagonist, a ghost seeking his previously torn-out eyes. Without any bearings, in the darkness, the ghost’s perceptions are depicted via a homage to the first experimental films : the experiments with light in the darkroom conducted by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp and Fernand Léger.

A short film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul in collaboration with composer Rafiq Bhatia and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Durmiente shows Tilda Swinton, the lead actress of Memoria, sleeping in a bedroom as the shadows grow longer.

This work filmed in the Peruvian jungle pays tribute to the American experimental filmmaker Bruce Baillie, who died in 2020, and whose work inspired Weerasethakul. An almost meditative vision takes in the sun reflected on rippling water, revealing the act of looking and seeing.

Interrogating the possibilities of an existence without his memories, A Conversation with the Sun draws on selected self-documented footage over several years – the means in which the artist has chosen to record his life since he embarked on filmmaking. Existing as a personal memory archive, these images together with published conversations between the artist and Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated cognitive specters of individuals and entities such as Jiddu Krishnamurti, Salvador Dali, the Sun, and others.

"A ghost band only plays at night and in dreams. Tilda and Sam are carried away by their song as they practice birth and death in the realm of no time." (Weerasethakul)

"A morning at home is full of vibrations. The movements of surrounding lives manifest on the wooden floor. Today, the feet are free. They become autonomous and synchronize with the leaves, the wind, and the sun. At one point, they merge. At another point, they disintegrate." (Weerasethakul)

In 2020, young Thais protested outside ther German embassy in Bangkok over the activities of King Rama X in Germany. In the same year in Chiang Mai, students demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan--cha. In 2022, Weerasethakul filmed the "Rio Madre de Dios", while travelling in Peru. These three situations prompted the artist to examine the philosophy of Krishnamurti, who posited that reaction to things belongs to the past and cannot help humankind advance, while action is performed in full consciousness, without making a choice nor being influenced.

"Even with your eyes open, you can't see anything. You are a part of the earth's limitless manifestations." (Weerasethakul) These stones taken from the Chiang Dao Cave would sometimes spur the artist to contemplation, recalling the "obscurity of the cave and the presence of millions of stones, all different, all individual, in the sky".

After hearing a loud 'bang' at daybreak, a Scottish woman begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.

Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles this unprecedented moment in time, and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers.

A macro view of the microorganisms that flock to lamps in the darkness.

The bas-relief represents Sarit Thanarat, former Thai prime minister who ruled Thailand in the early 1960s. This wall is also located next to a statue of Sarit, in the city of Khon Kaen, where Apichatpong Weerasethakul grew up. The artist represented Sarit Thanarat in various artworks, calling into question the value of his sculpture as an object of worship and as a glorification of the role of the army in Thai politics. For Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sarit was a product of American involvement during the Cold War and an archetype of generals of the army who subsequently took power through coups d’état, including the most recent in 2014.

A short video made for the Rubin Museum of Art.

Video to celebrate Anthology Film Archives’ 50th Anniversary

Short for his website, kickthemachine.

The acclaimed filmmaker has created an original short film in response to the global pandemic, titled October Rumbles.

A global portrait documenting the year's events, Cinetracts '20 features the work of an international lineup of 20 filmmakers. Capturing the zeitgeist in their own backyard, the artists' short films are the culmination of a year-long residency project.

Decameron was shot in lockdown during the Thai monsoon season, in 2020. In a dark room, a woman removes insects from a mosquito net in order to cook them. The moving light she holds briefly reveals her face, the transparent panel of the mosquito net and the insects left outside of it.

The videos were created with a pocket camera -its "eye" has a unique ability to see and interpret light and colour. This work introduces two "eyes", a pair for seeing communicate with one another and with other shadows, orbs, and cycles. They resolve around home, its memories, and secrets.

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's submission to 30/30 Vision.

A short for his website, Kickthemachine

A woman lies awake at night. Nearby, a set of theatre backdrops unspools itself, unveiling two alternate landscapes. Upon the woman’s blue sheet, a flicker of light reflects and illuminates her realm of insomnia.

"Night-time, fluorescent lamps buzzing and scuttling insects a hand writing in a blank book, writing and attempting to record a dream. The image envelopes the viewer, the projection plays on all surfaces insects, hand and lights slide across the floor dream and reality collide."

A collection of short films by five Thai directors imagining their country ten years into the future.

For over 20 years, Werasethakul has worked with the same crew and actors. In this video, he asks two of his close collaborators to recount and perform their dreams for the camera. Here Jenjira shares a childhood dream in with her deceased brother reappears.

Sakda Kaewbuadee (Tong) describes a dream in which he and his friend Somchai are in room filled with massive collection of books.

The work is part of the Memoria Project, the first major series of work that is set outside of Weerasethakul’s home country. Given his affinity for the Amazon, of which Thai jungle tales were originally inspired, Weerasethakul has started to explore South America - and since 2017, has been developing a film based in Colombia. He is drawn to its topography, where active volcanoes and landslides ceaselessly transform natural landscapes. The Memoria Project presents both personal and collective memories, while retaining the artist’s fascination with illumination. A vital part of the video and photographic works is the presence of a lone protagonist on the beach. Weerasethakul worked with Canadian actor Connor Jessup who visited him during the filming of a documentary at Nuquí area in Chocó Department, western Colombia. Here, the actor is a spirit that contemplates the artist’s journey, his dream of both real and imaginary films.

A collaboration between Apichatpong and Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto from his album “async”. The people falling asleep in this film are all his friends, he sent cameras to friends and asked them to shoot. Apichatpong often carries Digital Harinezumi camera with him, and completing a lot of works with this camera. This work was first exhibited at the WATARI Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (Japan, 2017).

A short film depicting a sunset.

ABLAZE premiered at the 27th Singapore Film Festival, November 24, 2016

As an omnibus of short films, Art Through Our Eyes is inspired by the art collection found at the National Gallery Singapore. Each of the five directors – Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Brillante Mendoza, Eric Khoo, Ho Yuhang and Joko Anwar – handpicked a masterpiece from the 19th and 20th century as inspiration for their short films.

Invisibility displays Weerasethakul’s continued interest in the issue of perception and memory. The installation takes threads from his recent films, Cemetery of Splendor and Fever Room, both of which feature the same actors. Here, he takes them deeper into an imaginary world and ponders the future of shared consciousness. The videos depict a landscape where the protagonists are confined to a room, along with the viewers. With no way out, they infiltrate each other’s dreams. Invisibility mirrors the troubled state of Thailand’s politics. It proposes a decayed vision of the future where one needs to constantly evade reality. The viewing experience shifts between seeing and not seeing, fact and fiction, space and void.

For a Fiery Monkey Year.

"Fever Room" features Jenjira (Jen) and Banlop (Itt), two of Apichatpong’s regular actors who also appear in his film, "Cemetery of Splendour". Like the film, this projection-performance presents the layers of reality and fantasy. Apichatpong fuses his memories with the actors’ and fictionalises the narrative. Here the people takes refuge in dreams while their land is on a brink of collapse, echoing Thailand’s present state of military dictatorship.

The clouds descend onto a village and engulf it for a day. They touch the roof tiles, the beds, the chairs, the carpets, the grass, and the bodies, infecting everything with the fever of white stupor.

In a hospital, ten soldiers are being treated for a mysterious sleeping sickness. In a story in which dreams can be experienced by others, and in which goddesses can sit casually with mortals, a nurse learns the reason why the patients will never be cured, and forms a telepathic bond with one of them.

Dreams, travels, places, people.

Football seen through the eyes of some of the best directors of the world.

This film depicts Bunleua Sulilat’s temple/sculpture garden 'Sala Keoku', located in northern Thailand. Passages of blackness sporadically dissolve under the fitful internal illumination of sparklers, which light up to reveal Sulilat’s unorthodox temple populated with a fantastical concrete menagerie of beasts and figures; the sculptures range from the broad, whale-like contours of a frog’s face, to a cavalcade of dogs on mopeds, to a pair of skeletons partially embracing as if sitting for a double portrait. These images are interspersed with those of an older Thai couple mysteriously wandering around the temple like wraiths, the woman’s plodding progress hampered by the use of crutches.

Weerasethakul's contribution to an omnibus production exploring analogies between football and everyday life. The project was created by Mexican film director Daniel Gruener and originally broadcast during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

The original footage in Father was shot in 2003 by Weerasethakul’s brother when their father was undergoing kidney dialysis. Forever stuck in his memory, the artist reuses the footage here as well as in a prominent scene in his feature film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

This film is a study for "Fireworks (Archives)", a fiction set at night-time amng the animal scultures at Wat Sala Kaew Ku Sculture Park. For Weerasethakul, these scultures represent a form of rebellion against tical oppression and the harshness of daily life.

For Monkeys Only - Video SD

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

Tilda Swinton, a British actress and friend of Weerasethkul, organized Film on the Rocks, a film festival in the Maldives where she invited the artist to take part in the project. While he was with her, Weerasethakul asked Swinton to recall her dreams in front of his camera. One Water portrays a poignant friendship between the actress and filmmaker, who continue to collaborate today.

Commissioned by The Sharjah Art Foundation

Blue Propeller is made to be shown with One Water. The fingernails were painted the color of the sky and the sea. But the sky was grey. The nail color instead matched the plane engine’s blue.

A diary of the time Apichatpong Weerasethakul visited a newlywed couple near the Mekong River.

Created in celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this short essay centres on a monologue delivered by a reincarnation of the philosopher in twenty-first century Thailand.

Shifting between fact and fiction in a hotel situated along the Mekong River, a filmmaker rehearses a movie expressing the bonds between a vampire-like mother and daughter.

In collaboration with Lomo, an Austrian camera company, and Mubi, a global film website, Weerasethakul was invited to make a work to launch the new LomoKino, a portable motion picture camera. Ashes juxtaposes the intimacy of his daily routine with the destruction of memories and his observations of the dark side of Thailand’s social realities.

Since 1995, the Viennale has invited renowned directors to create short, one-minute films as personal contributions to the festival. Ranging from home movies to political essays, musical sketches to abstract studies, these “little films” form a unique anthology of cinematic moments. 20 Little Films collects a selection of these works, premiering together for the Viennale’s 50th anniversary at the Locarno Film Festival.

Four short tales set in contemporary Hong Kong.

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

Made for 3.11 A Sense of Home Films project, organised by the Nara IFF Organising Committee.

a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Suffering from a kidney disease and sure of his death, Uncle Boonmee assembles his relatives in the countryside. He reminisces about his past lives and plans to visit a place before dying.

The story based on the mysterious portrait of the town of Nabua in northeastern Thailand. Soon after nightfall when the crepuscular violets concede to blackness, the wind's rustling intensifies and the boys come out to play.

The working men, the animals, and the rain orchestrated this silent video portraying a month-long, spaceship-making process.

Nabua’s spaceship as an ideally manufactured vessel slowly lifts off from the ground and flutters in the air for a moment. Then it moves back down to the earth. This loop portrays a never-really-taking-off spaceship.

A documentation of Nabua altered into a field of lightning. The film, in the manner of an old sci-fi or horror movie, shows a set of mini-explosions creating a synchronised series of bolts of lightning like a downpour of bullets from the sky. The flashes of light reveal the surroundings, then the ground with smoke, dust, and silence.

A filmmaker captures images that characterize the violence and repression as well as the hope of rebirth and remembrance in northeastern Thailand.

A group of teens gather at a house near the rice field for the shooting of an unknown movie. Wearing army costumes, they practice with their gun, one by one, and point it at a young man, walking in the distance, who reincarnates miraculously after being shot.

In this video diary, Weerasethakul documents the set of Primitive Project in Nabua, Thailand, particularly the scene when teenagers are hypnotized and sleep inside a time machine.

Petch, one of the young men of Nabua, composed and plays this song about his village written to commemorate the first shoot-out between the army and the farmer communists 43 years before. The song is combined with an image of Kamgiang, Petch’s friend, whose grandfather was killed by the soldiers in the field not far from his home.

A series of short films in which the history of the Thai border town of Nabua is re-imagined as an elusive science fiction ghost story rooted in Thai folklore.

A Thai band, Modern Dog, was invited to Nabua for the making of a music video for one of their songs, I’m Still Breathing. The teens are together in the village street and start to run, some of them kicking the smoking balls and throwing them into the moving crowd. The video is a celebration of exaltation and the release of tension, echoing Thailand’s political atmosphere.

20 short films about human rights.

A joyful shot recorded by Weerasethakul himself and two young men who become acquainted by filming each other in the back of a moving pickup truck. Though seemingly playful, the short film is a subtle portrait of migrant workers in the north of Thailand.

A film crew go in search of Nok Phii - a rare bird which feeds on the blood of other creatures.

Made to celebrate the new year. A single firework travelling through the night sky.

There is a room at a Palace Museum that is filled with spirits. It accommodates countless of memories spanning several centuries. The room has observed the artifacts, the faces, the sounds, and the moving images. The room itself is a moving image, a moving vehicle. It is a spaceship that has been sailing through the landscapes and time, from the Ages of Stone, Bronze, the Greek, the Roman, the Communist, and the Tsai Ming-liang. Now the artifacts have disappeared, so as lives. We are in the age of extinction. (...)

Made for 'Short Films for the King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 80th Birthday', 2007.

Like Kamanita, the unchanged Morakot is a star burdened with (or fueled by) memories. Apichatpong collaborated with his three regular actors, who recounted their dreams, hometown life, bad moments, and love poems, to re-supply the hotel with new memories.

Six directors, six independent films, six visions on the state of the world. Each carrying a unique and personal interpretation of a specific experience, their crossover creates new space for a dynamic and radical inquisitive reflection.

A recreation of an event to commemorate the presence of the dead and the decayed memories of the living, of filmmaking

Glistening objects from a jewelry collection inspired by carnivorous plants are transformed into a colourful sea of garden creatures through hand-drawn animations of roots, insects and various other organisms. A loving tribute to Weerasethakul's mother's garden. Commissioned by Dior; first presented at Musée de l’Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, to mark the opening of a new set of jewellery designed by Victoire de Castellane, 27 February 2007.

Teem Nov 20, 9:53 min. Teem Nov 21, 22:38 min. Teem Nov 22, 27:31 min. Each projection in this work is a daily morning portrait of Teem, the artist’s partner. As winter approached in late 2007, Teem informed Weerasethakul that he would hibernate until February 2008. As a result, he slept a lot during this time while Weerasethakul observed and sometimes disrupted his partner’s mission with his mobile phone.

One of the ingrained rituals in Thai society is the blessing automatically given before certain ceremonies and events such as the playing of the Royal Anthem in movie theaters before feature presentations. This short presents a "Cinema Anthem" which comically praises and blesses the feature to come.

A story about director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents who were both doctors, and his memories of growing up in a hospital environment.

Taking the recent tsunami in Asia as its starting point, the filmmakers have used the idea of a ghost seen wandering along the rocky coastline of a Thai island and, in a life-affirming gesture, they have invited some local children to direct the film for them, suggesting and filming the movements of the actor-ghost.

One of three films commissioned by the Jeonju International Film Festival in 2005. A couple escaped their family to look for a spiritual tree in the jungle. There is a song at night, a song that spoke about an innocent idea of love and a quest for happiness. Worldly Desires is an experimental project where I invited a filmmaker friend, Pimpaka Towira, to shoot the love story by day and the song by night. The story, Deep Red Bloody Night, was written by my assistant who wanted to reprise a forbidden love story in a more romantic time in the past. I picked a pop song, Will I be Lucky? to convey a sense of guiltless freedom one feels when being hit by love. The video is a little simulation of manners, dedicated to the memories of filmmaking in the jungle during the year 2001-2005. -Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Three digital short films: 'Worldly Desires' by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 'Haze' by Tsukamoto Shinya, 'Magician(s)' by Song Il-Gon

A romance between a soldier and country boy is ruptured by the boy’s sudden disappearance. Their story turns into a mythical venture based on Thai folklore.

A gang of local thugs come in and start roughing up the customers and get abusive with the daughter. Suddenly, an elaborately coifed and tastefully dressed woman shows up and rescues the young woman and her father from further harm. This is Iron Pussy.

Before Weerasethakul makes a new feature film, he conducts thorough research related to the topic of his interest. For his feature film, Tropical Malady, Apichatpong asked his colleague Ton to visit the army in the Kaeng Krachan Dam area to study the lives of soldiers and their daily routines. This video documents Ton during his research trip, which later became a reference for the main character in Tropical Malady.

One of several one-minute artists’ videos made for the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s 46664: Give 1 Minute of Art to AIDS campaign. A strobing fluorescent light inter-cuts scenes from an urban swimming pool; a young boy tempts the water.

A short film made with a mobile phone, commissioned by Nokia as part of the promotion of the first model of a cellular phone with a built-in camera.

In Thailand, an illegal immigrant from Myanmar with a mysterious skin rash, his girlfriend, and her friend visit the doctor's before spending the afternoon on individual and collective adventures.

Second Love in Hong Kong shares a common theme in the art works of Christelle and Apichatpong – a minimalist portrayal of hybrid fiction/non-fiction landscape. Here the filmmakers focus on an imaginary character named Hong (Swan) who travels from Thailand to Hong Kong for a housemaid job. The tale is taken from a comic book of the same title and is chosen among the thousands of romance comics that are widely read by Thai workingwomen, mostly underprivileged.

A collaboration with a group of villagers on the periphery of Khon Kaen province in the northeast of Thailand, recording them as they agree to take turns to act scenes scripted from two episodes of the TV series 'Tong Prakaisad', a rags-to-riches TV soap, in the familiar surrounding of their homes.

Mock documentary following the escapades of three teenagers on an afternoon jaunt.

A camera crew travels through Thailand asking villagers to invent the next chapter of an ever-growing story.

A depiction of the landscape, both metaphorically and realistically, of Panyi island. Some footage in the film was taken from the material shot for Mysterious Object at Noon.

Windows is Weerasethakul’s first work in video. It is an improvisational piece using little physical movement to capture the “natural phenomena” occurring between the video camera, television screen, and window.

The subject is a 10 year-old boy who is in charge of the microphone. He roams to places around Bangkok to gather sounds for the video. The sound indicates the direction he headed during the filming and displays his point of interests. The filmmaker is in charge of the image, film roughly along at the boy’s locations. The narrative of the film, presented in texts, is taken from a Thai comic book available around the place of the filming. This faces and places documentation can be viewed as a one-afternoon diary of a day out in Bangkok.

0116643225059 is an early experimental film by Weerasethakul made during his time at SAIC. The work is about a long-distance telephone conversation between the filmmaker and his beloved mother in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Weerasethakul superimposed a photograph of his mother in her youth alongside his own image and his apartment in Chicago. It renders a strong bond between the artist and his family.

A short documentary by Apichatpong Weerasethakul about lives connected by radio.

Bullet is Weerasethakul’s first film, an experimental, silent short that explores light and time. Here, one can see many tropes that continue to be developed throughout the artist’s career.