Amid the mass hysteria over the killings of alleged sorcerers following the collapse of Suharto’s authoritarian regime in 1999, a group of researchers discovers a sack of mysterious documents. As they sift through its contents—unsettling reports, enigmatic photographs, and fragmented recordings—they gradually piece together a hidden story: a secretive military project in which rural children were taken and subjected to covert experiments and indoctrination. Drawing from magical realism and mysticism, Kusno’s fiction utilises a blend of formats—including Super 8mm, Hi8, Video8, digital 35mm, and AI-generated images trained on historical and family photo archives—to speculate on the blind spots of Indonesia’s turbulent history.

After Colossus Produced with the support of VISIO Production Fund, in collaboration with Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci Prato (Italy), Mondriaan Fonds (the Netherlands), kohesiinitiatives (Indonesia). Neighbourhood played a role in providing production support and sound design needs.