Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cinema of Now

March 10–May 12, 2023

Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents several programs and the Townsend Center for the Humanities’s Una’s Lecture during this retrospective of the artist’s haunting, beautiful, and resonant works. 

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  • Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

  • Syndromes and a Century

  • Tropical Malady

  • Memoria

  • Cemetery of Splendor

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Cemetery of Splendor

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    France, United Kingdom, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, 2015
    Friday, March 10 7 PM

    A strange sleeping sickness befalls a group of soldiers in Weerasethakul’s mesmeric treatise on dreams, history, and magical thinking. “Cinema as the stuff dreams are made of” (Slant Magazine). With The Anthem.

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  • Mysterious Object at Noon

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Thailand, 2000
    Thursday, March 23 7 PM

    A film crew heads from Bangkok to the hinterlands of Thailand, asking people to continue improvising a story in this bewitching relocation of the surrealist exquisite corpse game. “Rarely has a first feature been more aptly titled” (Dennis Lim). With Worldly Desires.

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  • Tropical Malady

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Thailand, France, Germany, Italy, 2004
    Thursday, March 30 7 PM

    This shape-shifting blend of modern romance and mystic parable ventures deep into the Thai jungle of myth. “A work of outstanding originality and power” (Sight & Sound).

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  • Memoria

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Colombia, Mexico, France, United Kingdom, Thailand, Germany, China, Switzerland, 2021
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Memoria also screens Friday, May 5 (without Apichatpong Weerasethakul in person).

    Thursday, April 6 7 PM
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul in Person

    Set in Colombia and starring Tilda Swinton, Weerasethakul’s first feature film made outside of Thailand covers familiar thematic terrain for the veteran director in its exploration of the blurred boundaries between the natural world and spirit realm, and the way that collective traumas reemerge as memories and dreams.

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  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul Masterclass

    Friday, April 7 3 PM
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Leila Weefur in Conversation

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul addresses his approach to making moving images for both the cinema and installations and alternative screening spaces. 

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  • Syndromes and a Century

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Thailand, France, Austria, 2006
    Saturday, April 8 7 PM
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Arnika Fuhrmann in Conversation

    Inspired by the recollections of his doctor parents, Weerasethakul fashioned this gorgeous portrait of love and remembrance, mirrored in both the countryside and the city. “Profoundly mysterious, erotic, funny, gentle, playful, and utterly distinctive” (Guardian).

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  • Blissfully Yours

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
    Thailand, 2002
    Sunday, April 9 3 PM
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Jean Ma in Conversation

    Young lovers travel to the verdant jungle seeking respite from everyday anguish in “a delicate, ethereal dream of a film” (New York Times).

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  • Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Una’s Lecture

    Tuesday, April 11 5:10 PM
    Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Hilton Als in Conversation

    For the Townsend Center for the Humanities’s Una’s Lecture, Apichatpong Weerasethakul appears in conversation with Hilton Als, who inquires into his career arc, filmmaking practice, and the particular political challenges involved in making film in his native Thailand. With Len Lye’s Free Radicals, Bruce Baillie’s Valentin de las Sierras, and Weerasethakul’s Ablaze. 

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  • Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Thailand, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, 2010
    Wednesday, April 26 7 PM

    This Palme d’Or winner melds the last dying encounters of a farmer, Boonmee, with a gorgeously rendered landscape enlivened by the presence of ghostly apparitions. This is not magical realism, but realistic magic.

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  • The Adventure of Iron Pussy

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Michael Shaowanasai
    Thailand, 2003
    Saturday, April 29 7 PM

    Weerasethakul teamed up with performance artist (and San Francisco Art Institute graduate) Michael Shaowanasai for this outrageous genre-and gender-bending musical Western, which follows the exploits of a glamorous transvestite secret agent.

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  • Memoria

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Colombia, Mexico, France, United Kingdom, Thailand, Germany, China, Switzerland, 2021
    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Memoria also screens Thursday, April 6 (with Apichatpong Weerasethakul in person).

    Friday, May 5 7 PM

    Set in Colombia and starring Tilda Swinton, Weerasethakul’s first feature film made outside of Thailand covers familiar thematic terrain for the veteran director in its exploration of the blurred boundaries between the natural world and spirit realm, and the way that collective traumas reemerge as memories and dreams.

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  • Mekong Hotel

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    Thailand, United Kingdom, France, 2012
    Wednesday, May 10 7 PM

    The Cannes-winning director of Tropical Malady returns with another mystical, magical blend of documentary, narrative, and fable, set in the crumbling Mekong Hotel, near the Thai/Laos border. With Ashes, Blue, La Punta, and Night Colonies. 

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  • Cemetery of Splendor

    Apichatpong Weerasethakul
    France, United Kingdom, Germany, Malaysia, Thailand, 2015
    Friday, May 12 7 PM

    A strange sleeping sickness befalls a group of soldiers in Weerasethakul’s mesmeric treatise on dreams, history, and magical thinking. “Cinema as the stuff dreams are made of” (Slant Magazine). With The Anthem.

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