My unease took shape as my first low-budget horror fiction film. It is about how a regime feels entitled to control everything: not only to extract resources and stand above the law, but even to rewrite history.

The state, as the people's beloved, has already taken everything. The elite win, and we are left to accept every disaster. Those silent screams surface only as forgotten horror memories. This film is one of them.

The year, setting and characters are prepared to present an alternative understanding of the 1998 riots, and at the same time a critique of the ways this event is narrated.

One of its treatments, "we are all victims, we are all perpetrators," is the main narrative of Hapus. It reminds us that today the 1998 tragedy is rooted not only in the event itself. History is often twisted, erased and forgotten, to the point of shaping the mindset of new generations.

The film tells of the ghost of history that comes to those who modify and erase history. These ghosts also live within each of us, in our own memories, in our shared collective memory. Nothing separates the ghosts, that is, all of us who became victims, from all of us who have also become cogs in the machine that erases history.

The Orwellian erasure and modification of history in 1984 is, it turns out, truly happening now, above all in our Minister of Culture's viral statement on how he sees the history of 1998. We can become perpetrators, or we can be the ones who dare to speak up against the erasure of history that is taking place.

— Mahatma Putra

Behind the glitter and ambition of Indonesia's modernity lie many important events that in fact define the nation's identity today. The light and dark of this nation's story shape the reasons and direction of every decision we make, as a society and as individuals. The 1998 riots are one of them.

Sadly, those now holding the nation's compass treat these dark facts as if they never happened.

Hapus is our way of showing that an absence still has feeling and roots. We try to build a mirror of the nation after the tragedy, including its link to the dynamics of modernity. It becomes a voice for 27 years of the nation's life that have always been met with indifference. Beyond that, the film is an effort to build awareness of the impact of lost history.

We hope this choice of a horror treatment can be enjoyed and embraced by a wide audience. We believe the dark history behind us is best accepted as it is, as a lesson so that it never happens again.