MEMORIA (2021) – a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

At daybreak I was startled by a loud BANG and I could not sleep.

In Bogotá, up through the mountains, in the tunnel, by the river.

A bang.

At daybreak I was startled by a loud BANG and I could not sleep.

In Bogotá, up through the mountains, in the tunnel, by the river.

A bang.

MEMORIA

SYNOPSIS

Ever since being startled by a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, Jessica (Tilda Swinton) is unable to sleep. In Bogotá to visit her sister, she befriends Agnes (Jeanne Balibar), an archaeologist studying human remains discovered within a tunnel under construction.

Jessica travels to see Agnes at the excavation site. In a small town nearby, she encounters a fish scaler, Hernan (Elkin Diaz). They share memories by the river. As the day comes to a close, Jessica is awakened to a sense of clarity.

© Kick the Machine Films, Burning, Anna Sanders Films, Match Factory Productions, ZDF/Arte and Piano, 2021.

INTERVIEW | Biography | FILMOGRAPHY

APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL

>> director’s biography

» I am grateful to have witnessed Tilda and Jeanne searching for Jessica and Agnes in their own ways. Tilda was open to her transformation, like water, while Jeanne follows her feeling in each rehearsal and each take. «

>> read complete interview

From Memoria, a chronicle of the film’s genesis and creation © Fireflies Press

TO MEMORIA

» Hundreds of tiny lights flicker across the vast darkness. Some of the glimmers belong to the invisible ships and boats sailing in silence. Above them the sky is full of illuminations. The stars and the man-made lights look identical so the horizon seems to vanish. Closer up, beyond the curved window, is a blinking light on the airplane’s wing. This sight must be similar to that from a spaceship on a long voyage; time unknown.

“To be free, you need to extract yourself from everything, even your own experiences,” a man told me as I walked through the street of Cartagena. He said he was from France. But he talked to me in my language, Thai. I was rushing to a screening and thought that he must have read my mind, about getting away. I entered a shopping mall complex and ran into a line of people in front of a cinema. «

» I imagine a scenario in which Jessica Holland, a comatose character from Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie, wakes up. She finds herself in Bogota, being drawn by a dream or a trauma that she doesn’t remember. She walks, sits and listens. In her brief South American journey she bears the melancholy of a stranger. Clandestine sounds at a distance echo through the land. Still shrouded in the mist of the film from 1943, she hears the rumbles of the voodoo drums. They encourage her to walk and become part of a ritual. For a second, she wonders if she is still in that film, lying in bed, opening her eyes from a dream. Then, as on the previous night, the echo leads her towards the dark ocean. «

» I was startled by the sound of an explosion. It was a bomb, at dawn, not from elsewhere but within my head. This, I later learned, is called the Exploding Head Syndrome. It felt like someone snapping a rubber band inside your skull. My skull seems to be made of metal. The immense noise reverberates around the brain, but instead of waking you up fully, it puts you in a semi-conscious state, listening, anticipating. After several mornings the attack had transformed into a strange pleasure. The ‘bang’ cast its brilliant jolt around my head and I welcomed it. Soon I familiarized myself with its rhythm. I was able to initiate the ‘bang’ and tune it into different tones, as if I was a conductor or an animal trainer. This sonic companion dutifully emerged at sunrise and prompted me to listen to the sound of the city. «

» As we peer into Jessica’s head, we see the mountains with their creases and creeks mimicking the folds of the brain or the curves of sound waves. Her footsteps cause the inner terrain to inflate and tremble, generating landslides and earthquakes. From a distance we just see a woman walking.

She stops by the Plaza de los Periodistas and snaps a picture. «

» For years I usually woke up after three hours of sleep, fresh. Then I entered a ‘drifting’ stage in which scenarios came and went. It was not typical dreaming because in it I was doing nothing but being a spectator. A few hours later, at dawn, the ‘bang arrived as a second wake-up call. The pleasure of the ‘bang’ expanded backwards to be included in the ‘drifting’ terrain which now felt like a subterranean world. The images were dim, as if they were in a stage of decay. Logic was not clearly understood. Time decelerated. Would this feel like tapping into other people’s memories, or making a film in a foreign country? Possess/ Possessed – an equilibrium state when the self is removed; when nothingness could mean freedom. Maybe this was the answer to everything, including Jessica/Tilda’s migration. «

» In Bogota and 300 km away in Pijao, as I was making Memoria, the morning bang disappeared. With it the precious, murky, drifting realm was gone. For better or for worse, I could sleep for seven hours a night. This was another answer. «

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Photo: Sandro Kopp © Kick the Machine Films, Burning, Anna Sanders Films, Match Factory Productions, ZDF-Arte and Piano, 2021

BANG STORIES

» At that moment I saw something fall from the sky. Without a sound the object just exploded. «

>> read the stories

© Kick the Machine Films, Burning, Anna Sanders Films, Match Factory Productions, ZDF/Arte and Piano, 2021.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Original title: Memoria
International title: Memoria
Duration: 136 min.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Format: 4K, 35mm
Sound: 7.1, Dolby Atmos
Year: 2021
Original language: Spanish, English
Countries of production: Colombia, Thailand, UK, Mexico, France, Germany, Qatar
Production Companies: Burning S.A.S, Kick The Machine, Illuminations Films (Past Lives)
Co-production Companies: Anna Sanders Films, Match Factory Productions, Piano and with X stream Pictures and IQiYi Pictures, Titan Creative Entertainment and Rediance, ZDF/arte, Louverture Films, Doha Film Institute, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, Bord Cadre films, Sovereign Films, Field of Vision, 185 Films
With the support of: Fondo Fílmico Colombia, EFICINE 189, Medienboard Berlin- Brandenburg, Edouard Malingue Gallery, SCAI The Bathhouse, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Hubert Bals Fund, Purin Pictures, 100 Tonson Foundation, Estudios Churubusco Azteca
With the Participation of: L’Aide aux Cinémas du Monde Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée – Ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international – Institut Français

Written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Producers Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Diana Bustamante, Simon Field, Keith Griffiths, Charles de Meaux, Michael Weber, Julio Chavezmontes
Co-producers Jia Zhang-ke, Maxx Tsai, Meng Xie, Viola Fügen, Joslyn Barnes, Susan Rockefeller, Danny Glover, Caroleen Feeney, Tony Tabatznik, Jamil Zeinal Zade, Andreas Roald, Dan Wechsler, Cuí Qiao, Charlotte Cook, Soros Sukum, Cattleya Paosrijaroen, Pichai Chirathivat, Mónica Moreno, Andrés Calderón
Associate Producers Edouard and Lorraine Malingue, Roy Azout, Dynamo Producciones, Shiraishi Masami, Nagayoshi Fumiko, Cristina Gallego, Lorena Villareal, Sebastián Hoffmann, Lawrence Davin, Alejandro Mares, Carlos Paz, Shane Akeroyd
Associate Producer ZDF/arte Holger Stern
Associate Producers Doha Film Institute Fatma Hassan Alremaihi, Hanaa Issa

MAIN CAST

Tilda Swinton Jessica Holland
Elkin Díaz older Hernán Bedoya
Jeanne Balibar Agnes Cerkinsky
Juan Pablo Urrego young Hernán Bedoya
Daniel Giménez Cacho Juan Ospina

>> know more

MAIN CREW

Director of Photography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
Editor and Post supervisor Lee Chatametikool
Production Designer Angélica Perea
Costumes Catherine Rodríguez
Make-up Adam Zoller Duplan
Lead Sound Design Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr
Sound Supervisor Javier Umpiérrez
Sound Recordist Raúl Locatelli
Original Music César López
1st Assistant Director (TH) Sompot Chidgasornpongse
1st Assistant Director (COL) Santiago Porras

>> know more

WORLD SALES

The Match Factory GmbH
Domstrasse 60 | Cologne 50668 | Germany
+49 221 539 709 0
info@matchfactory.de

COLOMBIAN PRESS

Toctalk Comunicaciones – Colombia
Andrea Barrera | Diego Cantor
+57 3158916541
+57 3203066507

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

WOLF Consultants
Gordon Spragg | Laurin Dietrich | Michael Arnon
+49 1 57 7474 9724
hello@wolf-con.com

MEMORIA THE BOOK

All the materials printed in this book were collected by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his team during the writing, pre-production and shoot of the film Memoria. The result is a work of curation that seeks to trace the creative process and development of ideas behind the making of Memoria, in full knowledge of the impossibility of this task.

The book’s concept was conceived and elaborated by Giovanni Marchini Camia, Annabel Brady-Brown, James Geoffrey Nunn and Mateo Contreras Gallego.

Explore the book and order your copy here.