Singapore in the late 1960s, after independence. Shot in stark black and white, the film opens in a shadowy room with minimal objects—an ashtray, a rotary telephone, and a tape recorder. Inside, a young man interrogates a detained woman. As the long night goes on, identities and duration start to blur. Through ghosts from the future and overlapping historical timelines, the conversation was haunted. It starts telling of a bizarre tombstone trial that speaks the suppressed voices of small history to the present, demanding recognition as both witnesses and inheritors. Today, this film remains banned in Singapore.
Born in Singapore in 1986, Daniel Hui is a filmmaker and writer. A graduate of the film program in California Institute of the Arts, he is one of the founding members of 13 Little Pictures, a critically acclaimed independent film collective in Singapore. He wrote and directed Eclipses (Doclisboa IFF 2013), Snakeskin (Torino FF 2014, Yamagata IDFF 2015. RIDM 2015), and Demons (Busan IFF 2018, Berlinale Forum 2019).
From Tokyo International Film Festival 2026, No. 39
