Playwright’s Confession / 2018 / High-definition digital video / 16:9 aspect ratio, colour, sound, 15 minutes
In this short film, Yen Yen, a playwright arrested for suspected communist involvement in 1976, makes a public statement on television, confessing her crimes and denouncing her former beliefs. An older Yen Yen reflects on the event and how it affected her life. The script is based on the actual confession text found in newspaper archives.
This work is part of the TV Confessions series – an ongoing research series of video works that examine the public confessions made by political detainees in Singapore from 1960s – 1980s. They were arrested for suspected communist activities and most of them were freed after publicly denouncing their communist links on national television. As the televised confessions were broadcasted only once and were not seen again, the re-enactment in these videos were based on transcripts found in newspaper archives.
GREEN ZENG 