Tilda Swinton has built an entire career working with auteurs, from her early days with Derek Jarman to her recent work with Wes Anderson, David Fincher, and Joanna Hogg. And she’ll continue the trend in upcoming projects too, as The Film Stage reports the actress will work with Pedro Almodóvar on his next film. Moreover, she’ll also reunite with Apichatpong Weeresethakul on his next project, which is shrouded in secrecy.
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First up, Almodóvar’s feature. In Página 12, Swinton confirmed “The Room Next Door” will start filming in NYC this coming March. The actress told the outlet that the film will “center on the friendship between three women, played by two British actresses and an American.” The movie will also be “in the language of Shakespeare.” It’s unclear if that’s a nod to iambic pentameter, a theatrical setting, or the Bard’s generous thematic outlook. But it’s worth noting that it’s Almodóvar making an English-speaking film for the first time. “I didn’t feel comfortable making a film in English, that’s I refused,” the director told La Presse about potentially making “Brokeback Mountain” years ago, “but now I feel capable of doing it.”
As for Weeresethakul’s upcoming project with Swinton, that’s more under wraps. At a Q&A at the Metrograph theater in NYC back in February, the director hinted he wanted his next project to film to be a smaller affair than 2021’s “Memoria.” “Now I want to go make a film in a different country,” he said. “This time, I want it to be more flexible. It’ll be a smaller budget, and probably with [my longtime actors] Jenjira [Pongpas] and Sakda [Kaewbuadee]. It’s the same old gang.”
Weeresethakul also stressed he wanted to film closer to his native Thailand. “After Colombia [where he filmed “Memoria” with Swinton], I want to be closer to home, he continued. “And to be even more free, to not control everything and just let things flow—as in, the freedom to jump into the new territory. I was thinking of “Mysterious Object at Noon.” What we were doing, in 1999, there was a kind of freedom to it. It really was an experiment.” As for a shooting location, Swinton told Les Inrockuptibles that she would have to “to stay eight months in Sri Lanka for the next Apichatpong film.” So that’s an answer, but not necessarily for what Weeresethakul’s next movie is about.
And don’t forget Swinton also stars in Joshua Oppenheimer‘s first fiction feature next year, titled “The End.” The actress told the French outlet a bit about the film. “This is his first fiction, since he has previously made documentaries, notably “The Act of Killing” in 2012, which had a big impact on me,” Swinton said. “”The End” tells the story of a rich family who has lived in an underground bunker for twenty-five years. An ecological disaster threw the latter into a post-apocalyptic world, and the father bears part of the responsibility since he was an oil tycoon fond of fracking.” With any luck, “The End” will hit the festival circuit in 2024.
So when it comes to Swinton, the more things change, the more they stay the same, as she continues to work with directors with singular visions. Stay tuned for more info about her upcoming movies with Almodóvar and Weeresethakul.