From Gaugin to Picasso, the primitive is an important concept in the development of the European avant-garde. A difficult term to deal with, historically tied to the process of colonialism and eurocentrism, it came as a surprise to find it as the title of a project from one of the most inventive and radical artists of the 21st Century: the thailandese Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Created in 2009, the Primitive Project is a reencounter of Weerasethakul with the northeast of Thailand, the region of Isaan, and consists of a art installation, made up of seven video-installations and two short-films, an artists book of the CUJO platform, and of the feature film Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives, awarded the Palme D or in Cannes, in 2010. Starting with a theoretical, critical and historical discussion on the concept of the primitive in the 20th century, the dissertation elaborates a reading of the images and concepts that constitutes the Primitive Project, indication how Weerasethakul appropriates the concept of the primitive, transforming it in a space for experiencing new possibilities of engagement with the audiovisual form.