- The festival and the Thai director are collaborating on the design of the poster for the upcoming edition, establishing a link between the festival’s identity and the artistic universe of one of the key figures in contemporary cinema.
- Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Weerasethakul becomes the first international filmmaker to design the festival’s poster in its 71-year history.
A photographic work by filmmaker and visual artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul features on the poster for the 71st edition of the Valladolid International Film Festival (SEMINCI) For the first time in its history, the festival’s poster will bear the signature of an international filmmaker, a decision that reinforces its global vision and marks the beginning of a partnership with the Thai director.
The decision was made following an extensive and enriching dialogue with Weerasethakul, incorporating into the festival’s vision the artistic perspective of one of the key voices on the contemporary scene, where film, photography, and installation are all part of the same creative process.
The selected photograph, Power Boy (Mekong) (2011), integrates the human figure into the imposing landscape of the Mekong River, which in Thai means “mother of water.” Throughout his career, Weerasethakul has depicted this river—which flows through much of Southeast Asia—on numerous occasions, establishing it as a symbol of personal memory and of the relationship between life, death, and history. The image shares with his films a meticulous visual composition and a special focus on the relationship between human presence, landscape, and light.
PobrelaVaca Studio, the Valladolid-based design agency responsible for SEMINCI’s visual identity since 2024, will be in charge of developing all the graphic applications for the poster of the 71st edition.
For SEMINCI’s directors, Javier H. Estrada and Mariona Viader, the chosen image encapsulates many of the recurring themes in the filmmaker’s work. “Like his films, the poster’s image is deeply inspiring: it springs from the everyday and, without ever straying from it, expands with simplicity and naturalness toward the eternal. It moves from lightness to transcendence; the urban dialogues with nature; and from a revealing darkness, the light of humanity emerges,” they note.
Considered one of the essential figures in auteur cinema of recent decades, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Bangkok, 1970) has built a filmography internationally recognized for the freedom of its narrative forms and for a constant exploration of memory, time, nature, and perception. Among the major accolades of his career are the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), the Jury Prize for Tropical Malady (2004), and the Un Certain Regard Prize for Blissfully Yours (2002).
His most recent work, Memoria (2021), starring Tilda Swinton, continues this exploration of listening and sensory experience that runs through much of his work. The film will form part of the series A History of Sound (in Cinema), one of the festival’s thematic strands.
This same perspective is also developed in his work as a visual artist. For over two decades, Weerasethakul has been presenting installations, video works and photographic series in museums, biennials as well as art centres around the world, where he explores, through other artistic languages, the same themes that run through his films: the relationship between image, sound, space and memory.
His work has featured in some of the leading international contemporary art circuits, such as DOCUMENTA 13 (Kassel, 2012) and the Venice Biennale (2019), in addition to solo and group exhibitions at institutions such as the Haus der Kunst (Munich), the Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis), the New Museum (New York), the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin) and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Choosing this poster builds on an idea that began to take shape during the preparations for this year’s festival, with José Luis Cienfuegos at the helm, who proposed that SEMINCI’s image could be drawn from a photographic work. This idea has now been brought to life in a creation by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
The directors of SEMINCI highlight that “it is a true honour that Apichatpong Weerasethakul is becoming part of the festival’s history in such a significant way, contributing a fundamental element to the identity of our 71st edition”. They also emphasise the collaborative process with the filmmaker: “We have been working with him for months; he opened the door to his creative world to us with great generosity, and together we considered a multitude of options until we arrived at the one we consider ideal.”
The poster for the 71st edition, which will take place from 23 to 31 October 2026, was unveiled on Tuesday at an event held at Espacio SEMINCI. The presentation was attended by the Mayor of Valladolid, Jesús Julio Carnero, and the Councillor for Tourism, Events and City Branding, Blanca Jiménez, as well as Mariona Viader and Javier H. Estrada, the festival’s co-directors.