Tilda Swinton, Apichatpong Weerasethakul Chanel Initiative Team
The Chanel Heritage Foundation joins forces with Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton and Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul in a landmark collaboration to fully support Asian cinema.
In Hong Kong, Chanel is spearheading a restoration program in partnership with the M+ Museum, under the direction of Silke Schmickl, Chanel’s Chief Curator of the Moving Image, who will oversee the M+ Center for the Moving Image’s collections, commissioning and curatorial programs. The project will restore nine Hong Kong New Wave films, three of which will premiere at major international film festivals in 2025: Tong Shu-suan's The Arch (1968), Peter Yung's The System (1979) and Tam Yao-man's The System Love Massacre” (1979). 1981).
“I always think about it, there's no such thing as old movies, because movies are now, so you can watch a movie that was made in 1923 and you're right there and you can imagine a movie that's going to be done a hundred years from now, You'll be there then,” Swinton said of film preservation. “And there's no such thing as new movies, because all the movies before you see them are just the work of the previous generation. So it's a real distillation of the present. Therefore, the idea of film preservation is integrated into the form. ”
Veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Tong Shu Shuen emphasized the universal appeal of film: “Film is like a window into the human condition, so it's a very powerful medium.”
The luxury brand’s initiative, spearheaded by global head of arts and culture Yana Peel, will also showcase Weerasethakul’s first work, Conversations with the Sun (VR), at the Bangkok Hotel in Bangkok. Includes a score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and visual effects by Katsuya Taniguchi. Experimental Film Festival.
The Thai film master reflects on his cultural roots: “My Asian films and our lives have always been about ghosts – traces of history, traces of light, traces of the unsaid. “Conversations with the Sun” ( VR) is part of that lineage, but in a different form. It is a cinema without a screen, where the sun itself becomes an object of contemplation. It was important to bring this work to the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival because this city, this region, understands the impermanence of light. Moving, bodies disappearing, memories disappearing. We are always drifting.”
The program includes “M+ Rediscoveries,” a recurring series showcasing restored classics and experimental films by emerging Asian artists, and “Avant-Garde Now,” a series featuring renowned video artists and experimental filmmakers from across Asia. The French fashion giant also supports Asian avant-garde film festivals and builds a comprehensive film distribution library.
The collaboration also launches “An Encounter: The Last Thing You Saw Felt Like a Movie,” a lecture performance featuring Swinton and Weerasethakul in conversation, directed by Kong Rithdee Host, integrating sound, light and film into an exploration of memory and perception.
“I am delighted and honored to be able to highlight the region's central importance in film and the moving image, both within its analogue past and digital future,” said Peele.