{"id":132216,"date":"2023-02-15T16:04:33","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T23:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=132216"},"modified":"2023-02-15T16:04:33","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T23:04:33","slug":"apichatpong-weerasethakul-to-shoot-next-film-in-sri-lanka-inspired-by-arthur-c-clarke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/02\/15\/apichatpong-weerasethakul-to-shoot-next-film-in-sri-lanka-inspired-by-arthur-c-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"Apichatpong Weerasethakul to Shoot Next Film in Sri Lanka, Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jordan Raup<\/a> Courtesy The Film Stage<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With its staggered, theatrical-only rollout over the last year, here\u2019s hoping you\u2019ve had the opportunity to experience the mesmerizing, transportive experience that is Apichatpong Weerasethakul\u2019s Memoria<\/em>. The director, who left Thailand for Colombia to film the Tilda Swinton-led feature, has now announced the first details for his next project, and its intended home may surprise you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Metrograph<\/a> ahead of a 35mm run starting Friday, the director revealed he plans to head to Sri Lanka to shoot his next film and he may be partnering with a streamer for the film. (MUBI, are you listening?) With plans to do some location-scouting starting this month, he hopes this new project will be more free\u201d than his last one. This time, I want it to be more flexible. It\u2019ll be a smaller budget, and probably with [my longtime actors] Jenjira [Pongpas] and Sakda [Kaewbuadee],\u201d he said, hoping to not have a strict list of things to shoot each day. It\u2019s the same old gang.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for his inspirations, he\u2019s looking toward sci-fi author and 2001: A Space Odyssey <\/em>co-writer Arthur C. Clarke. He lived and died in Sri Lanka, and one of his books, The Fountains of Paradise<\/a><\/em>, is set in a fictional land based on a Sri Lankan landscape,\u201d the director said. The novel, released in 1979, was set in the 22nd century and followed a visionary scientist who conceives the most grandiose engineering project of all time, and one which will revolutionize the future of humankind in space: a Space Elevator, 36,000 kilometers high, anchored to an equatorial island in the Indian Ocean.\u201d While it\u2019s unclear if he would be drawing direct inspiration from the novel, with Memoria<\/em>\u2018s (spoiler?) sci-fi twist, it would be fascinating to see the director head further down this path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apichatpong also said another source of inspiration was an article written by a Thai woman who went there on a religious pilgrimage. She speaks about climbing a holy mountain, the same one that inspired Clarke\u2019s story, so I\u2019m going to go check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of its length, it may be his longest project yet. I wrote a treatment for a three- or four-hour movie, just from my imagination, from what I dream about,\u201d he said. When you talk about 90 minutes, it\u2019s a comfortable length. The human attention span is 90 minutes, and the dream cycle is also 90 minutes. To make it longer is like a challenge: how to create a journey where you don\u2019t feel trapped by this human, biological requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, the Uncle Boonmee<\/em> director revealed what we\u2019ve all been waiting for: his thoughts on James Cameron\u2019s Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em>. It\u2019s so simple, right? It\u2019s such a classic storyline, there\u2019s no innovation there, but the technology is amazing,\u201d he said. In other movies that are completely computer-generated, you can feel there\u2019s something missing, whereas in this one you are able to identify. The characters have those very big eyes, they\u2019re like babies. It\u2019s a mass market product, and I admire that aspect which only Hollywood can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jordan Raup Courtesy The Film Stage With its staggered, theatrical-only rollout over the last year, here\u2019s hoping you\u2019ve had the opportunity to experience the mesmerizing, transportive experience that is Apichatpong Weerasethakul\u2019s Memoria. The director, who left Thailand for Colombia to film the Tilda Swinton-led feature, has now announced the first details for his next project, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}