After a week in which there was some social media sniping over NEON’s seemingly stalled “never-ending tour” of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria, my personal #1 movie of 2022, the distributor has announced that distribution is not stalled at all. The previously announced tour, in which the film will travel from city to city, formally begins with New York’s IFC Center on April 1 and L.A.’s NuArt on April 8. Multiple cities now open each week, and the website includes dates stretching through October.

From the press release:

Director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul remarked on the plan, “For Memoria, cinema experience is crucial or maybe the only way. Let’s embrace the darkness and dream, one at a time.”

An outspoken advocate for the theatrical experience, Tilda Swinton remarked, “Memoria is the perfect film for this moment…Big cinema or bust…Throughout the universe, in perpetuity…”

NEON Founder and CEO Tom Quinn describes the plan as, “to truly pay homage to this existential gem was to build a sort of traveling mecca of cinema that has the capacity to stop us in our tracks.”

Memoria will return to the IFC Center on April 1^st with Los Angeles’ Nuart Theater following on April 8th.  With over 100 special engagements across multiple cities each week, Memoria will play in arthouse cinemas throughout the country as well as series of non-traditional venues like pop-up drive-ins, museums, art galleries, university screenings and outdoor events.

To find showtimes, purchase tickets, and to host a screening of your own, visit www.memoria.film.
Memoria is a profoundly serene film, inspired by the Thai director’s own memories and expressions combined with a historical excavation of Latin America.  The film lulls audiences into almost a dreamlike state, as they settle in to follow Jessica (Academy Award winner, Tilda Swinton), an expat in Bogota, who, after hearing a jarring sound at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia. In her search for the sounds’ origins, she encounters both personal and collective ghosts in the surrounding landscapes.

Memoria is Filmmaker‘s Winter, 2022 cover story, and is still on newsstands (and will be through mid-April).