The Match Factory, the world sales company owned by arthouse streamer Mubi, has boarded four newly restored feature films by Palme d’Or-winning Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, adding a batch of the filmmaker’s earlier work to its catalog ahead of the Venice Film Festival.
Match Factory has secured international rights, excluding North America, the UK, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland and Thailand, to Blissfully Yours (2002), which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes; Tropical Malady (2004), winner of the Cannes Jury Prize; Syndromes and a Century (2006), which premiered in competition in Venice; and his Palme d’Or winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).
The four titles join three other Weerasethakul features already on The Match Factory’s slate: Mekong Hotel (2012), Cemetery of Splendour (2015) and Memoria (2021), the Tilda Swinton-led film that won the Cannes Jury Prize.
The Match Factory will launch sales on the restored titles at the Venice Film Festival next week.
Weerasethakul supervised the 4K restorations, which include remastered and remixed audio and new key art for each film. The restorations were supported by the Thai Film Archive, MoMA, Strand Releasing, Tomo Suzuki, Mehelli Modi and Second Run, Cinémathèque Suisse, White Light Studio, 185 films and Kick the Machine, the production outfit Weerasethakul launched in 1999 to produce work outside Thailand’s commercial studio system.
Alongside his eight feature films, Weerasethakul has directed numerous shorts, designed video installations and live performances. His work has been the subject of retrospectives at the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou and MoMA.