Afrian Purnama

In 1965, Indonesian artist Amrus Natalsya was one of the many artists arrested during the violent purge of communists and their sympathisers, after the failed coup by the September 30th Movement. Natalsya was released in 1973.

Siwalaya, which means the nature of Shiva. A place where birth, glory and destruction are in perfect circle lines. In Siwalaya there are worship buildings that have stood for centuries; experiencing changes in natural and human history. For those of us who live today, what is the meaning of these buildings that are hundreds of years apart in culture and time?

Going through a journey of three filmmakers trail tracing Indonesia’s family cinema. From Indonesia to the Netherlands and back, they met Kwee Zwan Liang Cinema and Rusdy Attamimi Cinema, to a whole other level of the journey that brought them to not only culture issues in the public cinema but also on aesthetics and the truth of family cinema from a generation to the ones to come.

Amateur films occupy a peculiar space in the colonial film archive. They belong to the private drawers of personal history and family memory, yet they also provide a valuable record of how social conditions were shaped by class divisions and racial hierarchies. Amateur films reveal how deeply colonial power infiltrated every aspect of daily life. Sumatra, Jawa, Kalimantan (Gazes from the Colony) consists of amateur footage recorded on three islands during Dutch rule. Each island's distinctive imagery reveals a difterent facet of how colonialism operated. In Java, domestic and leisure activities are foregrounded, while in Sumatra and Kalimantan imagery is dominated by plantations and resource extraction. As visitors approach the screens, their bodies create shadows interrupting the film projection and inviting the audience to reflect on their own relationship to these images.

Dancing lines, dancing eyes, dancing camera, dancing body, dancing spirits.