Film by Thai director won an award at Cannes

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul shared the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the first Thai to win an award at Cannes Film Festival since Apichatpong took home a prize at the festival a decade ago.

Judges award the Jury Prize to what they deem to be the third best film among the global entries.

Apichatpong’s Memoria shared the prize with Ahed’s Knee by Director Nadav Lapid of Israel. His previous film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, captured the Palme d’Or for first place in 2010.

This year’s first prize went to French Director Julie Ducournau for her film Titane. She is only the second woman to win the top honor. The awards were read out by famed American Director Spike Lee who headed this year’s jury.

Memoria is Apichatpong’s first film shot outside of Thailand and the first to star a foreign actress, Tilda Swinton of Great Britain, who has won an Academy Award. Set in Bogota, Colombia, Swinton plays a woman startled by a loud bang at daybreak and sets out to search for the origin of the sound that haunts her soul. Apichatpong’s first firm in English and Spanish also stars French actress Jeanne Balibar.

“Memoria is a beautiful and mysterious movie, slow cinema that decelerates your heartbeat,” wrote Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian newspaper, who gave the film the highest rating of five stars.

“Memoria is an out-of-body experience that you have to build up to, step by step,” Bradshaw wrote, calling Apichatpong’s films “mystic odysseys,” and saying the director “will astonish you.”

Photo courtesy of https://www.voathai.com/