Editorial Gema Dari Menara (1968), Brunei’s first feature film

Abstract

The film was a revelation to me because I was not aware of any visual record of such a culture in pre-independence Brunei. Until I saw the film, my impressions of Bruneian culture came mostly from hearsay and oral history […] to put it bluntly, Gema Dari Menara is not a very good film at all, but is nonetheless a time capsule of Brunei’s lost pop history. Gema Dari Menara/ Echoes from the Minaret: A Conversation with Mervin Espina about the Lost Cinema of Brunei (Espina, 2013: 70)