Apichatpong Weerasethakul
A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition
octoberoct 5 – 14
© Shun Sato ©
© Shun Sato ©
Concept and direction Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Creative assistant Sompot Chidgasornpongse. With Jenjira Pongpas Widner, Sakda Kaewbuadee Vaysse, Chai Bhatana, Sam Mitchell, Sita Kiatneramit. Music Ryuichi Sakamoto. Sound design Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu. Director of Photography Chatchai Suban. Camera assistant and production Thanayos Roopkhajorn. Set director Natchanon Pribwai. Film production crew Jirayu Rattanakhanahutanon, Pongsakorn Nanta, Suttipong Nanta. Film production manager Phatsamon Kamnertsiri. Film production assistant Somporn Ruensai. Film production Kick the Machine Films. VR creator Katsuya Taniguchi. VR production Taisei Yamaguchi, Hideyuki Kido, Nuttanit Thiantanukij, Kana Kondo, Satomi Yoshizawa, Hisashi Sato, Yoshinori Ikeda, Hikaru Takatori. VR adviser Tsuyoshi Nomura. Technical manager So Ozaki. Stage manager Sato Oikawa. Lighting design Kazuya Yoshida. Producer/curator Chiaki Soma. Production coordinator Haruka Shibata. Production coordination assistant Nanami Hanzawa.
Production Arts Commons Tokyo
Delegate production of the European tour Festival d’Automne à Paris
Coproduction Aichi Triennale 2022 ; The Japan Foundation ; Theater der Welt 2023
Special support Shane Akeroyd Coopération Rhino Studios inc ; SCAI The Bathhouse ; Museo Larco
Material support STYLY, Inc
With the support of The Agency for Cultural Affairs; Government of Japan; Japan Arts Council
With the support of the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès and Sylvie Winckler
The Festival d'Automne à Paris is executive producer of the European tour and presents this performance in co-realisation with the Centre Pompidou.
Book Homes, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Built around a wide-ranging interview and previously unpublished essays, this book offers a journey through the territories that the Thai filmmaker has inhabited and transformed over the last thirty years. Obtain
Masterclass with Apichatpong Weerasethakul
12 October at 3pm, cinema 1, level 1. Admission free, subject to availability.
Rencontres
From 9 to 13 October, Apichatpong Weerasethakul will accompany all the screenings of the Retrospective with a host of guests, including Tilda Swinton, Sakda Kaewbuadee Vaysse, Dennis Lim, Charles de Meaux, Simon Field, Antoine Thirion... Detailed programme to follow.
With the support of
The Thai filmmaker's second foray into performance art, A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition, presented in Paris in a new version enhanced by a third part, uses virtual reality to create the conditions for a collective dream.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is best known for his penchant for dividing films into two halves. A good example is that of Tropical Malady, in which the narrative of a stormy romance is suddenly interrupted by plunging us into a nightmarish jungle. He has employed a similar structure since his first performance-based creation, Fever Room. Presented at the Festival d'Automne in 2016, it reversed the stage set-up thereby enabling the audience to discover, by means of a screen being lifted up, the rows of empty seats in a gloomy theatre. This new show hinges upon a passage where roles and things are reversed: the visitor goes from being a spectator to an otherworld explorer, being awake gives way to sleep, and heavy bodies suddenly become airborne, light. As the members of the audience put on their virtual reality headsets, they collectively enter into the same dream. For the director, putting on a headset equates to learning to see with your eyes closed and enables us, as in meditation or dreaming, to reach new depths of consciousness. Oscillating between a near-death experience and a return to the origins of life, and carried along by a soundtrack composed by the great Ryūichi Sakamoto, A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition invites us to observe the lights of which our memories are made, and to bring back the past in order to free ourselves from it.
Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul
