New images from Apichatpong's Uncle Boonmee

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's new feature film Uncle Boonmee who can Recall his Past Lives (Loong Boonmee Raleuk Chaat) is in its final editing stages in Bangkok.

We'll all likely be hearing more about it in the next month or so.

Meanwhile, Animate Projects has a gallery of stills from the film, courtesy of Apichatpong's Kick the Machine and U.K.-based producers Illuminations Films.

Go have a look.

Here's the synopsis from Animate Projects:

Uncle Boonmee is suffering from kidney failure. As an avid practitioner of Yoga, he is well aware of his body. He knows that he will die in 48 hours. He feels his illness must be related with his bad karma. He has killed too many communists, he says. Boonmee calls his distant relatives to take him back from hospital to die at home, a longan farm. There, they are greeted by the ghost of his deceased wife who has re-appeared to take care of him. His lost son also returns from the jungle in an ape-like form. The son has mated with a creature known as a ‘monkey ghost’ and has lived in the trees with her for the past 15 years. On the first night, Boonmee talks about his past lives that he remembers. On a second night, while the ghost wife is doing his kidney dialysis, Boonmee has a sudden urge to visit a place she has mentioned. So the group takes a journey into the jungle at night. It is full of animals and spirits. They finally reach a cave on top of the hill. Boonmee realizes that this is the cave in which he was born in the first life that he can remember. Then he passes away, taking with him tales that span hundreds of years.

Uncle Boonmee who can Recall his Past Lives is the feature film element of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive project, which deals with ideas of extinction and the recollection of past lives.

In addition to Kick the Machine and Illuminations, other producers are Anna Sanders Films with Eddie Saeta (SA), GFF Film-und Fernsehproduktion KG and The Match Factory. The project's development was also assisted by funds from Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund and Berlin's World Cinema Fund.

Meanwhile, other elements of the Primitive project continue to make their way around the world.

The short film A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, which is a look at the village of Nabua, Nakhom Phanom, is part of Festival Bo:m in Seoul, which is running until May 4. Letter will be shown this Saturday and Sunday, April 3 and 4. Letter is also at the Hong Kong International Film Festival as part of Avant Garde Programme II, with one more screening scheduled for Monday, April 5. It also screened in last weekend's Flatpack Festival in Birmingham, England.

And the online short, Phantoms of Nabua, is the core part of Apichatpong's solo exhibition Native Land at Scai the Bathhouse in Tokyo. The installation runs until April 17.

(Via Animate Projects)