Teoh Beng Hock died on July 16, 2009, adding his name to the list of custodial deaths that had shocked Malaysia for quite a while. The circumstances surrounding his case were dramatic to start with, and became ever more so as time went by. An admirable attempt to document Teoh’s tragedy on film has been made by Penang Monthly’s columnist, Tricia Yeoh.
Twenty five minutes. The length of this documentary is shorter than the interrogation of Teoh Beng Hock (which lasted nine hours), but it manages to convey with brevity and clarity the facts surrounding the mysterious death of the political aide three years ago.
Sure, the subject matter has been so extensively covered that there’s no possible new angle. But for director Tricia Yeoh, the making of the film became a very personal journey. Yeoh at that time was a research officer for the Selangor state government, and had worked in the same building with the deceased.
She didn’t know him well, but they would bump into each other in elevators and at state government functions. But his death shocked the nation and spurred Yeoh to apply for a grant from human rights NGO Komas to film a story that needed to be told by someone on the inside. Komas provided funding to the tune of RM6,000; Yeoh had to raise the rest on her own.
During the recent Freedom Film Festival 2012, “Rights of the Dead” was one of three films screened at packed theatres in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore.
