A Flower of Forgetfulness

Inside the space of the Brigittines’ Chapel, a large white fabric floats in the air, as if guided by an eternal wind. Images projected on it, emerge and vanish through folds and shadows, like a collective cloud of half-remembered dreams drifting over the audience. For this new performance, commissioned by the festival and one of the edition’s most anticipated projects, filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his artistic collaborators present images from their diaries to weave a meditation on forgetting.

The visual journey reflects on recent genocides: moments of erasure, violent flowers of forgetfulness. A metal tower allows viewers to observe the space from multiple vantage points. It is at once reminiscent of a rocket launch and of a platform for contemplating sunsets. From there, the visual landscape intersects with two other storylines. In one, visitors climb Sigiriya—an ancient rock in Sri Lanka—their footsteps echoing on metal stairs. In the other, two figures communicate across continents, hinting at the fragility of memory.

The artists unify these stories to conjure a mesmerising experience perched between cinema and performance, an unforgettable moment about the possibility of forgetting, memory, distance, and continuity.