Few filmmakers have reshaped the language of cinema as profoundly as Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The Thai director — often affectionately called “Joe” — is internationally celebrated for his dreamlike films that blur the boundaries between memory, history, and the subconscious. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and acclaimed worldwide for works such as Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century, and Memoria (2021), Apichatpong has built a body of work that is as poetic as it is radical.
This year at RIFF, we are deeply honored to welcome him as a Guest of Honor. After the special screening of Memoria (2021) starring Tilda Swinton, Apichatpong will host a Masterclass, offering audiences a rare opportunity to explore his creative process, influences, and philosophy of cinema.
We had the privilege of sitting down with him ahead of his visit to Reykjavík to talk about dreams, memory, and the shifting role of cinema in his life.
RIFF: So firstly, dreams and sleep are an essential part of your work, almost since the beginning. Can you tell us a bit about where this interest comes from, and how you decided to explore it in the cinematographic language in 20, almost 30 years of work?
APICHATPONG: I cannot pinpoint when it began because I started to become aware of my fascination, I think, in the late 2000s – in 2009 or 2008. I worked with a group of teenagers and started filming them sleeping. Then, I realised that long before that, I had always been fascinated by people sleeping or seemingly dreaming, because it’s such an intimate and private activity – to observe someone with their eyes closed. But to look at them, we have to open our eyes. Moreover, we see them on the screen. When you record someone or when you watch a film with someone sleeping, it’s almost as if you’re being hypnotised. As you sit in the cinema, your eyes are open, but actually, you are someone else. So you empathise. This kind of double existence of the viewer and the subject is something that I’m really interested in. When we talk about moving images, it’s about moving things, but when you sleep, you’re almost immobile. When you think about the idea of time passing, you realise that we spend a lot of time doing nothing, just being still. And that’s a very good reflection. I mean, in terms of watching and also in terms of filming, the act of filming.
RIFF: It’s really interesting what you’ve mentioned, because it’s as if you were speaking about cinematic language, but you’re talking about dreams, which are – I guess – perpetual. I don’t know if it’s perpetual, but this correlation that happens in the cinematographic experience and the experience of dreaming, which are quite similar in a way. Another part that is really important in your films is again connected to the process of the mind, its memory, like in Memoria, where you have been working with the history of your country, Thailand. In the previous one, you even explore the history of mankind from your perspective. But at the same time, you always create this oneiric kind of gaze. And I would like you to talk about how you construct this language and style that has been around for so many years.
APICHATPONG: Actually, I try not to analyse it or break it down into a formula because I feel like there’s a magic in immediate observation of the moment of connection. As I’m talking to you now, I don’t think about how long it’s going to be in the film or if I’m going to use this angle or that angle, because I know those decisions will be made in the editing process. For me, shooting is a really vivid activity; it’s not only following the script. I don’t know this style well, but it’s all about observing and feeling everything in the moment: the atmosphere, the actors, the crew members. It’s a really performative action.
RIFF: Speaking about the performative, how do you consider this intersection of your work with installation and your work with cinema? You work with features, you have a huge body of work, and for me, the language of the short is almost, of course, it's cinema, but it has to be a different kind of approach than a feature, because in the feature you have a wider space to explore the moving image language. The moving image language in an installation, it's for someone that can pass by and stay, but with cinema you have to be focused. Do you have any thoughts about how to approach this interdisciplinary aspect of your work?
APICHATPONG: I think they are different, but they share the similarity about how our brain or how my brain works in a way that a feature film may be like a long contemplation or a dream, well, the installation is different. The shorts are like a birth of thinking, a birth of a little nap, and the story is going through certain indescribable feelings. But as for the installation, it's something else. I think the installation is about a little suggestion of some feelings that needs to be completed by the audience. For me, an installation is like one, maybe a few lines, and then the audience completes the picture or the mood, that's quite open to interpretation. So the installation is more collaborative in terms of exhibition and exhibit distribution, but for short films and feature films, they're highly personal. It’s also an answer to the question of why I need to make movies, and why we need to watch movies. Because I stopped watching movies for a long time, maybe five, six, seven years, because I didn’t feel the need, but I still have a very big desire to make movies. But each time I ask myself this question, why am I doing this? I cannot answer it. It's not even about the economy, because this movie doesn't bring me money at all, or it brings really little.
RIFF: Nowadays, what would you consider to be the most important thing in cinema?
APICHATPONG: From the perspective of a viewer, I don’t know, because I stopped being a viewer. But as a maker, I think the point is to really synchronise and to be in an open space. Even though it’s about personal recollections or personal expression, every time I make a film, the space is really open, almost like no cell, because it’s invisible. It’s the world that you create, so anything can happen. I have to be very, very generous with myself in order to not fix so much, you know. Okay, I want this, I want that, but it’s almost like collecting ingredients to cook with later in the kitchen for the post-production. Yeah, so it has to be very open, I think, at least to me.
RIFF: Beautiful. And can I ask about the thing you called a lack of interest, the reason that you stopped being a viewer? Or do you think there’s another kind of reason?
APICHATPONG: I’m sure when I watch movies, I enjoy the experience. But, the initiation, the urge to go, to sit in the dark is not there. And also, there’s a formula in filmmaking that is very predictable, in a way. I mean, my films are also quite predictable, I believe, but for me, the most important thing is making them. It’s less about the final product, but it’s all about interaction.
RIFF: I would like to ask you about these ingredients that you said you recollect. What makes you interested in a particular moment in working with a non-professional and then working with a big star, for example, with Tilda Swinton? What’s the interest or what’s the thing that appeals to you when you see a scenario? What’s the thing that attracts you? How would you describe it? What would you say it is? These ingredients. When you make the films, what is the thing that attracts you to Genjira, and then you switch to Tilda? When you went to Colombia, what do you think made it more attractive to you so you decided to shoot there instead of, for example, in a tropical country that was not Thailand?
APICHATPONG: Yes, it's a mixture. I think it's a mixture of my own experience and memories. And then it's not about having a story and having someone play it, but it's more about a particular person who influenced or inspired me to write, so the main cast is already there before I create the script. It's not about casting someone for the role, at least not for the main role. It's all about that person like Tilda or Genjira. To write for them. The mixture of my own experience in Memoria is a good example, because it was almost like a jigsaw of my encounter in Colombia and Tilda just feeling it. The rest is in the picture.
RIFF: I’d like to come back to the idea of Apichatpong as a viewer. It's a mixed question because he appears as a creator. How would you consider or how do you see the changes in your way of telling stories from Mysterious Subject at Noon to Memoria? What do you feel changes, or what is the thing that still prevails for you from the beginning to the end? Because there are really different kinds of films.
APICHATPONG: Yeah, I think they represent or reflect different paces. Because we change all the time. No, we are not the same person at any moment. When I look back at these films, I think they reflect a particular rhythm of life and interest. For example, I wouldn't do Mysterious Subject at Noon again. It's madness. Even Memoria is for me something that shows another reason and the beauty of filmmaking. Maybe it’s not about repeating, but reflecting. And you mentioned Genjira and Tilda, it's also about this. I think it's a manifestation of love to spend time and solve problems.
RIFF: I believe that for you, from what you describe, it’s the way when you get interested in something, it’s like you were doing an investigation somehow. It’s the curiosity that leads you to keep discovering Tilda or any place and person in general.
APICHATPONG: Yes, totally. And it’s an empathic machine because it really makes me become someone, for example, childlike. I believe it applies to people who work with cinema. It’s like a big play.
RIFF: Going in a different direction, what do you expect from your visit to Iceland?
APICHATPONG: Oh, I don’t know. The crazy thing is, I don’t expect much of anything. I mean, not only Iceland, but life. When you don’t expect anything, you are always surprised. Of course, I’m expecting something, at least the beauty, the exchange between the audience and the film, and encounters with students. But in general, it’s almost like not analysing my own film in the process of making, so that everything seems new.
RIFF: Would you say that when you shoot a scene, you have a similar attitude, not expecting something specific?
APICHATPONG: Well, I have a storyboard. So yeah, we even made a block shot with my Director of Photography. There’s a certain mechanic I follow, but I am open to changes and to adding unplanned things.
RIFF: It’s going to be hard because you said that you don’t consider yourself a viewer anymore in a way. But would you say there are still some cinema influences that are around in your head that show up in the creative process? Influences from some filmmakers or films?
APICHATPONG: For me, as I say nowadays, I really think that if I have to watch films, I want to watch one from the 70s because I feel that time is really stimulating. I was born in the 70s, so I think that I missed many works from that period. And when I watch them, I’m super inspired. Olivera comes later, but my inspiration is someone like John Cassavetes. And the movies of Andy Warhol, for example, are amazing. They are really contradictory. No, they are really sexy, but at the same time, very boring and sometimes funny and then again very boring. Warhol’s films are quite the opposite, every time you watch them, you always see something new.
This Interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.
RIFF 2025 takes place in Reykjavík from September 25th to October 5th, join us for 11 days of awarded films, great special events and don’t miss the chance to meet Joe.