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The Lab

We enter the thickness of the Amazon Forest, cradle of multiple myths and legends of ancient cultures that still inhabit the territory and protect it as guardians. Immersed in a territory that operates as a whole, as an organism, wedive in to in the dreamlike universe of Apichatpong. Exploring between dreams, past lives, parallel universes, ancestors and spirits the world we live in.

We discover that we can explore beyond what we see, that, just as we travel on the surface, we can go through multiple layers, also look into the inner universe of our characters, their territories, their memories. Apichatpong opens up an infinite world of possibilities for us, of ways of seeing and feeling the world, it brings out our senses and takes us to unknown places.

``I always think of a film as a body. What one as a filmmaker wants to do with all the parts —with that collection of images and sounds that make up a film, which are its organs— is to give life to that body, turn it into a living organism.``

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The Master

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Winner of the highest award of the film academy, the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in 2010, Weerasethakul is located in the most privileged place in contemporary cinema. His works, always applauded on film circuits and festivals, make him one of the most important figures on the world film scene. In a career spanning more than 20 years, he has participated in numerous festivals and has won important awards, including three more prizes from the Cannes Festival: a Certain Regard for Blissfully Yours in 2002, the Jury Prize for Tropical Malady in 2004 and, again, in 2021 he won the Jury Prize for his latest film Memoria, made in Colombia.

Apichatpong approaches the creative universe from cinema and contemporary art, addressing the social and personal spheres from an honest and special perspective. He is not satisfied with conventional structures, which is why his work is ethereal and non-linear, it is situated in non-time. However, he relies on the stroke of light, on the intangible that he manages to represent in a fresh and natural way. He does not need complex special effects to immerse us and make us part of this dance between the tangible and the intangible, the real and the dreamlike.

``Perhaps the cinema is one of the best spaces that allows us to think of a deep immersion in others and the immersion of others in one. Cinema does allow us to open up to the world in other ways.``

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Description

Playlab Films presents its workshop Apichatpong Weerasethakul Lab: filming in the Amazon, which seeks to bring together emerging talents from around the world, so that together with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, one of the most original voices in contemporary cinema, they can explore and boost their creativity, developing a short film, through practical workshops. For ten days, fifty creative directors of various nationalities and contexts will share the experience of creating fifty short films, under a wonderful methodology created by Master Abbas Kiarostami, adapted by Werner Herzog and now revisited by Apichatpong. This methodology will be implemented in an environment thought out and carefully designed by the PlayLab Films team, for the creation of synergies and both collective and individual learning that will transform the trajectory of all the participants.

The idea of the workshop is to get out of one’s comfort zone, face a strange and unknown territory, observe it from curiosity and respect and co-create from different ways of seeing and understanding the world. Creating from a different place than the one we live in every day, allows us to see the territory as a blank canvas and each of the elements that make it up, the people who inhabit it, the rivers, the paths we travel through the thick and humid jungle, each plant, each animal, the culture that embraces and welcomes us, like brushes and paints that allow us to create and tell stories from another place.

During the workshop, participants will explore all the phases that make up the development, production and post-production of a film. From the Idea, which will originate from the theme proposed by Apichatpong on the first day of the LAB, through shooting and editing, to the screening of the finished short film on the last day. Each of these phases will be accompanied individually and in groups by Weerasethakul, through workshops, talks, exchanges and consulting. Each participant must have their own equipment (camera, sound, computer, etc.), as they will have to be able to assume all the processes and roles of their film.

With the aim of bringing all emerging directors closer to the current industry, the fifty short films will be hosted on the Playlab Films VOD platform for distribution and exhibition, creating a space to view all the works made from anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, as we want to continue making movies together, we want to produce your next projects!! PlayLab Films opens an annual call, for all the members of the workshop, where 2 feature film projects will be selected for production.

``When I traveled to Colombia I had to rethink the way I approach memory and, in parallel, the cinema. In Thailand, where I have made all my other films, I used my own memory or the memory of my acquaintances to think of a story, to create an audiovisual narrative. Here I had to operate in another way. My memory was insufficient; That's why I had to absorb the memories of others. Those who keep the memory of this territory are others.``

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The Lab in Images

``The jungle is a primary space. As in Tropical Malady, the jungle is a return to the roots, to a place where there are no rules. I think that it is very close to the cinema because the cinema is a place without laws and since I am very shy it is where I can release all my instincts freely.``

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The Lab’s Base Camp

Location

The Amazon jungle, the largest tropical forest on the planet, will be the setting for our workshop. With a total extension of 7 million square kilometers, distributed in nine countries, we are facing one of the most biodiverse and multicultural regions in the world.

The base of the workshop will be Inkaterra Guides Field Station, an Eco-center, flora and fauna research laboratory for scientists, students, volunteers and nature-loving travelers who want to explore and learn about the Peruvian Amazon at this mega-diverse forest. It is located at the 17th km of the left bank of the Madre de Dios River, within the Tambopata-Candamo National Reserve, one of the last easily accessible virgin tropical rain forests in the world, which has 274,690 hectares of immense biodiversity and impressive landscapes. Puerto Maldonado, in the southern jungle of Peru near the border with Bolivia and Brazil, known as the “Capital of Biodiversity”, is the main city of the region and the most important city in the tropical jungle of southern Peru.

``It's about how time works in our minds and how film can reflect that. It has to do with the relationship of yourself to life, which is made up of time. I really like meditation because it puts you in touch with all that. My work goes in that direction, how cinema can express time.``

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul

List of selected 50 participants

Aline Fischer France
Anastasia Kirillova Sweden
Anne Thieme Germany
Antonio La Camera Italy
Arturo Joaquín Maciel Flecha Paraguay
Barbara Cunha Brazil
Brett Allen Smith USA
Catherine Dauphin UK
Chang (Mei) Liu China
Charlotte Mungomery Australia
Dani Huda Indonesia
David Hansen Australia
Derek Howard USA
Dwight Fagbamila Netherlands
Dylan Pailes-Friedman USA
Flora Dias Brazil
Gabriel Gonzalez Acosta Mexico
Hadar Morag Israel
Hiona Henare New Zealand
Jeff Reichert USA
Jelmer Wristers Netherlands
Jesse Van der Kolk Netherlands
Jon (Ioannis) Symvonis Greece
Jose Miguel Jimenez Gonzalez Chile
Julio César Padilla Ecuador/ USA

Kate Vinen Australia
Kenia Guillen Ortega USA
Lorran Dias Brazil
Luca Zentilin Italy
Marina Hufnagel Argentina
Mika Altskan USA
Dylan Trupiano USA
Naomi Pacifique Swiss-Dutch
Nemil Shah India
Olivier Guerpillon France/Sweden
Orion Eshel USA
Orly Nurany Netherlands
Pablo Briones Switzerland
Robert Mentov Canadian
Roberto Drilea USA
Simon Becks Netherlands
Scott Glassman Canada
Sofía Landgrave Barbosa Mexico
Taha Long Malasia
Tahiel Jimenez Medina Colombia/USA
Talia Shea Levin USA
Tomas Posse Argentina
Vittoria Campaner Italy
Zachary Yap Singapore
Zeyu Wang China

Our Career

PlayLab Films
— The Production House

For more than a decade, Estephania Bonnett, film producer and creative mind behind PLAYLAB FILMS , has explored the different paths where creativity is expressed, embracing different initiatives. In 2018, she was recognized by Werner Herzog as the prominent artist of the year. She fervently believes that creativity generates more creativity, and for this reason she has been the pioneer in creating experiential workshops for emerging directors hand in hand with great filmmakers.

Co-creator of the famous “Filming with…” practical workshops that have provided a creative space where authors from all over the world make a short film under the guidance of a film maser. The workshops have been held in 4 different countries, with the participation of Werner Herzog and Abbas Kiarostami. As a result of these workshops, more than 250 short films have been produced and distributed in different international festivals. Her desire to continue with those emerging creative minds has led her to produce several feature films that have won international awards and have been selected at the best international festivals.