Ashes (2012) a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Colour, 35mm, 20mins.

Ashes is Thai filmmaker APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL’S latest short film. Founder of the independent film collective Kick The Machine based in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Weerasethakul’s latest feature films include Tropical Malady and Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Through experimental narratives, Weerasethakul’s films portray the changing face of contemporary Thailand, exploring intimacy, ghosts, spirituality, community, nature and existence. Shot entirely with the newly modernised 35mm Lomokino, Ashes is Weerasethakul’s meditation on love, pleasure and memory.

The film can be screened for free online exclusively at MUBI.com here.

King Kong rarely barked. She had been with us since she was three months old. Every night she slept and looked around in her dreams.

 We thought that our spirits were enriched by the fertile soil and the greenest leaves and the rarest insects and the abundance of humility.

But came a day in March we woke up from our dream. The sky wept ashes. The rotten ground trembled as baby worms rose to taste the gray snow. Across the mountains the light of devotion shone and blinded our souls. The darkness was so bright we wept and shouted in silence.

And we woke up again, and again.

 We united like multiple King Kongs with no sound. Every heartbeat a baby was born with her mouth shut tight like a touch of two stones. With pleasure we lived in hope, and hoped to never wake up.

A land of Nothing. We slept. We smiled. We ran.

— Apichatpong Weerasethakul