Solo, Solitude

The Suharto regime has been holding power in Indonesia for over 30 years, shutting down democracy time and time again. Highly critical of the regime and unafraid to speak his mind, Wiji Thukul is a poet whose words are often yelled proudly by the crowd during political protests. When riots break out in Jakarta in 1996, he and a few other activists are accused to be responsible. Forced to flee, Wiji escapes to Pontianak in Borneo where he hides for eight months, sometimes living with complete strangers. There, he has to change his identity se...

Nyai: A Woman from Java

Set in Indonesia's Dutch colonial era, in 1927, a young and beautiful woman lives with her sick and aged Dutch husband. This woman loses her own name and is called Njai, which means a foreigner's concubine, and realizes that she is living in a kind of prison, while she deals with loads of visitors to her residence. Director Garin Nugroho shows in a distinctive way how much effort a woman, deserted both by the colonial country's law and the colonized country's traditional culture, puts in to retain her dignity.