A Beautiful Lie

Darus (62) is a river guardian. He practices rituals and adheres to beliefs as a form of reciprocity with nature. One day, Darus hears news of a child missing in the river and is asked by the community to help with the search. However, his advancing age and an increasingly toxic relationship with the river have left him unable to go near it, to the point of causing him distress. Darus is trapped in a dilemma: saving the missing child or protecting himself.

To respect the fasting month, Dani (18) refrained from eating out by packing food from a warteg. However, two of his boarding house friends accused Dani of having no empathy and took his packet of food. He was forced to endure his hunger in his boarding room, until finally Dani could not endure the hunger and he returned to the warteg. At the warteg, she met her two boarding house friends who had cornered Dani while she was eating at noon.