Looking to kick off the new year with a singular cinematic experience? (No, we're not talking about Spider-Man: No Way Home.) Beginning on December 31, Chicagoans will have a chance to see director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria—a film that, according to its distributor Neon, is "exclusively playing no more than one theater at any given time."
The film began its United States roadshow at the IFC Center in New York City on December 26, and will open at Chicago's AMC River East 21 on December 31 for a six-day run that ends on Wednesday, January 5. Neon has no plans to make Memoria available on streaming platforms or as a physical release, stating, "The only means of experiencing MEMORIA will be in theaters… forever."
Starring Tilda Swinton and set in Colombia, the narrative of Memoria unfolds through an unconventionally subtle filmmaking style that will likely leave you with more questions than answers. In his four-star review of Memoria, Time Out film editor Philip De Semlyen wrote, "There’s nothing quite like Memoria, though, especially in a climatic shot that falls firmly in the am-I-actually-hallucinating bracket of final act twists. It’s an exercise in mindfulness that asks you to give yourself over to it lock, stock and barrel."
The latest batch of Memoria screenings will mark the film's return to Chicago. The film previously screened at AMC River East 21 in October during the Chicago International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Gold Hugo for Best Film in the festival's International Feature Film Competition and lauded for its "cinematic poetry and humanism."
Tickets for screenings of Memoria at AMC River East 21 are on sale now, with multiple showings scheduled each day throughout the weekend. If you're a cinephile or a curious movie-lover, you might want to jump at the chance to see this film, because there's no telling when it might return to Chicago.