KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 4 — Malaysian filmmaker Ho Yuhang and producer Lorna Tee are set to present their latest crime thriller film, The Silent Village, at the JAFF Market in Yogyakarta, Indonesia this week.
The film follows a homicide detective investigating a murder in a quiet village amid a heated election season.
The discovery of a female body in a sugarcane field at the village leads the detective to piece together links to another unsolved human trafficking case from five years earlier.
The Silent Village draws inspiration from a series of cold-blooded murders committed by an Indonesian shaman between 1986 to 1997, Variety reported today.
The shaman, Ahmad Suradji, was arrested in May 1997 after the discovery of a body in a field near his house in Lubukpakan, a village in North Sumatra province.
Subsequent investigations led to the discovery of another 41 corpses in the area.
The victims reportedly came to Suradji as they believed he had supernatural powers to help them get rich, find spouses or romantic partners and ensure fidelity.
However, Suradji convinced the women to take part in a ritual where he buried them up to the waist in the field and then strangled them.
He later buried their bodies with the heads pointing towards his house as he believed doing so would boost his magical powers.
Suradji was executed in 2008 while his wife Tumini was sentenced to life in prison for assisting with the murders.
Indonesian screenwriter Prima Rusdi wrote the script for The Silent Village.
It was produced by Paperheart, the production company founded by Yuhang and Tee in 2004.
Yuhang and Tee previously collaborated on the 2017 action thriller Mrs K.
