Short Films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Program #1 - October 7 at 8:00pm

Films Include:

The Anthem, 2006, 35mm, colour, sound, 5 min

In Thailand, before each film screening, there will be a Royal Anthem before the feature presentation. The purpose is to honor the King. It is one of the rituals that embedded in the society before certain events to give a blessing to something or someone.

The Anthem is part of Artist Cinemas, commissioned by the Frieze Art Fair, UK. It is a film that praises and blesses the theater and the approaching feature for each screening.

La Punta, 2013, DCP, colour, sound, 2 min

M Hotel, 2011, Super 8 transferred to DCP, colour, sound, 12 min

Two men are in room 1702 of a hotel named M, situated in the heart of Yau Ma Tei area. They are film crew members who are visiting Hong Kong for the first time. They spend their afternoon in the room doing souvenir portraits. Below in the park outside sits their team member with a microphone clipped onto his jacket. The man later leaves his bench and wanders around the area.

Emerald, 2007, Digital, Cinema version of the installation, colour, sound, 11 minute

Mobile Men, 2008, 35mm transferred to DCP, colour, sound, 4 min

Two young men in a pickup truck are filming themselves. Belonging to different parts of the world, through the use of a camera they are discovering each other. In a windy atmosphere, they initially film each other with close ups on parts of their bodies, then, little by little, they shoot their full figures. As the camera lenses change, a landscape of rice fields and a cinema crew get into the frame. The camera then reshoots the road and the men, as if we were witnessing a film rehearsal. When the frame goes back to shoot one of the two main characters who has tattoos over his body, the man lifts his shirt up and tears off a wired microphone that is taped to his chest. He then pastes it on the tattoo and cries out from the top of his lungs. The microphone picks up the heavy wind noise and the camera moves to captures his face. He looks directly at the camera, smiling.

Mobile Men is part of Stories on Human Rights by Filmmakers, Artists and Writers, a project marking the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

Cactus River, 2012, DCP, black and white / colour, sound, 10 min

Since she appeared in my film in 2009, Jenjira Pongpas has changed her name. Like many Thais, she is convinced that the new name will bring her good luck. So Jenjira has become Nach, which means water. Not long after, she was drifting online and encountered a retired soldier, Frank, from Cuba, New Mexico, USA. A few months later they got married and she has officially become Mrs. Nach Widner.

The newlyweds found a house near the Mekong River where Nach had grown up. She spends most of her day crocheting baby socks for sale, while he enjoys gardening and watching television (Sometimes without the sound because most of the programs are in Thai).

Cactus River is a diary of the time I visited the couple - of the various temperaments of the water and the wind. The flow of the two rivers - Nach and the Mekong, activates my memories of the place where I shot several films. Over many years, this woman whose name was once Jenjira has introduced me to this river, her life, its history, and to her belief about its imminent future. She is certain that soon there will be no water in the river due to the upstream constructions of dams in China and Laos. I noticed too, that Jenjira was no more.

Cinetracts, 2020, DCP, colour, sound, 2:09 min

Footprints, 2014, DCP, colour, sound, 6 min

Worldly Desires, 2005, DCP, colour, sound, 43 min

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.