Demons

︎︎︎Trailer ︎︎︎Streaming

︎SYNOPSIS
Aspiring actress Vicki thinks she has gotten the role of her life in Daniel’s new play. But her debut lead role only casts her into endless torture at the esteemed director’s hands. When she turns to supposed allies for support, Vicki finds that they encourage Daniel’s abuse as part of her artistic growth and his genius. Feeling like the only mad person in sunny, sinister Singapore, Vicki takes matters into her own hands. A wicked, satirical horror on power, art, and trauma, Demons exposes the hidden violence we live with to build any community.

︎CAST

Vicki

Yang Yanxuan Vicki

Daniel

Glen Goei

Viknesh

Viknesh Kobinathan

Ashley

Eshley Gao

Assistant Director

Tan Bee Thiam

John

Daniel Hui

Strange Woman

Violet Goh


︎CREW

Written, Edited and
Directed by

Daniel Hui

Produced by

Tan Bee Thiam,
Daniel Hui

Director of Photography

Looi Wan Ping

Executive Producers

Paul Beach,
Violet Goh

Co-producer

Naoko Ishise

Associate Producers

Dan Koh,
Looi Wan Ping,
Glen Goei,
Jeremy Chua,
Joana Gusmão,
Pedro Fernandes Duarte

Sound Recordist

Alex Herboche

Sound Designer & Mixer

Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr

Music Composers

Wuttipong Leetrakul, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr


︎TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Original title

Demons

International Title

Demons

Duration

83 min / Colour,
Black and White

Aspect Ratio

1:37 Academy Ratio

Screening Format

2K DCP

Sound

5.1 Surround Sound

Year of Release

2018

Language

English, Mandarin, Singlish

Subtitles

English

Country of production

Singapore

Production Companies

13 Little Pictures,
Ultraviolet Films

In Association with

Jackfruit International, Tiger Tiger Pictures, WBSB Films


PRESS
“[U]nmissable…a work of a dedicated cinephile, visually and narratively outstanding…The film is sure to stay with the audience long after” – easternKicks

“Demons is a spectacularly unsettling accumulation of diverse and fragmented images, techniques, sounds and themes. It clearly has a point to make about the environment that produced it, as well as the men who continue to overpower this landscape. It need not be understood entirely, and that is also part of its beauty. It is dark, grotesque and simply absurd, with a wonderfully wicked sense of humour.”
– The Upcoming

Even harder and more virtuoso, Daniel Hui from Singapore jumbled up the genres. Demons begins as a painful #MeToo drama in the theatre milieu, slowly transforming into a history of revenge, combining the driest satire with ghost scare and B-movie splatter. A young actress gets a role with a renowned director. Even his cutting comments in the casting show: The collaboration is torture. Sexual oppression and attacks are becoming increasingly obvious. At the same time, the film becomes more and more tangled – and draws from it a power that goes beyond the alleged simplicity of history. Hui interweaves the elements even more complex and enigmatic than Jennifer Reeder (Knives and Skin Film). He cuts faster and more confusing between the levels and times back and forth – and can very skillfully create a suction, which leads to a bloody, metaphysical finale. The imagery has only a naturalistic appearance at first – the further the film progresses, the more artificial it looks.”
- rbb24

“Stories-within-stories-within-stories also form the weird fabric of Daniel Hui’s Demons, a hallucinatory, near-Lynchian evocation of contemporary Singaporean psychosis that centers on power dynamics in a theater troupe.”
– Artforum


DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Trauma creates a rupture; you split into two — the person you were before experiencing the trauma, and the person after. From here on out, you can never go home again. Your home has become a nest of vipers. Your own self turns against you; it taunts you, shames you, humiliates you; and when you least expect it, it attacks you.

Trauma makes you become the absolute other to yourself. You will never feel safe again. All you have for company is silence — the silence of regret, the silence of complicity, the utter failure of words.

And so you make a film. Everyone has demons. This is a story of mine.


FESTIVALS

IN COMPETITION

Busan International Film Festival 2018

IN COMPETITION

Forum section, Berlinale – Berlin International Film Festival 2019

IN COMPETITION

!f Istanbul 2019

IN COMPETITION

Focus on Asia Fukuoka 201
Sitges International Film Festival 2019
Taipei International Film Festival 2019
Pesaro International Film Festival 2019
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema 2019
Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival 2019


SALES AGENT
Reel Suspects




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