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SPIRITS OF TASI TOLU, THE
Year: 2025
Classification: M
Runtime: 29 min
Produced In: Timor-Leste, Australia
Directed By: Andrew Sully, Wendy Chandler
Produced By: Andrew Sully, Wendy Chandler
Language: Tetum (with English subtitles) and English
THE SPIRITS OF TASI TOLU investigates the impact of a controversial tourism development in Tasi Tolu (meaning "three seas" in Tetum), the site of a series of massacres during Indonesia's occupation of Timor-Leste (1975-1999). Steeped in traditional culture, the local Timorese believe the area is inhabited by the spirits of those executed. A Singaporean developer has government approval to build a luxury resort complex in Tasi Tolu. While this project will bring much-needed investment and employment opportunities, it will displace thousands of residents who depend on the lakes and the surrounding land for their livelihood.
With the arrival of foreign investors, the film highlights a new period of nation-building in Timor-Leste. Can the local people who care for sacred sites and the resort developers find some common ground? The film investigates a complex situation with parallels in a number of post-conflict locations.
This documentary is the culmination of a series of films and media projects by Andrew Sully and Wendy Chandler, who have worked in Timor-Leste for over a decade.
VIEW TRAILER HERE: vimeo.com/1145799374
Produced and directed by ANDREW SULLY & WENDY CHANDLER
Cinematography ANDREW SULLY
Editor, animation & visual effects WENDY CHANDLER
Music JAMIE SAXE
Sound designer & mixer NIGEL CHRISTENSEN ASSG
© 2025, Purple Flower Music P/L
Alternative synopsis
THE SPIRITS OF TASI TOLU depicts the tensions surrounding Tasi Tolu (meaning "three seas" in Tetum), a wetland area in Timor-Leste that was used as a site of extrajudicial executions and secret burials during the Indonesian occupation (1975–99). The film examines multiple, overlapping conceptions of the landscape:
- as a forensic terrain where investigators search for physical evidence;
- as a spiritual landscape inhabited by the dead;
- as a site for Catholic ceremony and commemoration.
- and as an area targeted for commercial development and state-led economic transformation.
The local community has given new meaning to a landscape threatened with erasure, transforming it from a 'haunted' place into a living site of memory and cultural practice. The film argues that acknowledging the role of the dead is essential to understanding contemporary social life in Timor-Leste and to recognising the challenges that state-building projects can encounter in landscapes marked by political violence.*
(* this summary is adapted from an introduction by the film's co-director, Andrew Sully, to a paper he has written entitled "The Spirits of Tasi Tolu: the role of the dead on a contested site", published on-line in the journal Global Discourse on 22 January 2026).
Permalink: https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/19305