A minimalist concept is used in delivering a personal and intimate storytelling, making The Elderphone (2025) a different way of framing a harsh reality. A structure simultaneously reduces and expands the discourse on how family bonds intertwine with death and erasure–or perhaps the eternal preservation–of memory.
There is a “streak of audacity” in the soul of this film’s storytelling, a breath that is mischievous yet warm with its own translation. Director Iqbal Keane Kembaren pictures his conversation with his grandmother, who acts like she has a “cheat sheet” of life. A static movement of the camera is able to wrap this film, which leads us to see his grandmother’s life. Several names are presented, becoming the cheats about what has happened and will happen in her life, or theirs.
The one who briefly passed through, who is now gone, and whose life remains unknown to us. The phone number and basic information about Grandma Karo reveal themselves layer by layer, except for her real name. However, we know the whole story in less than 20 minutes. The Elderphone is the incarnation of an eternal preservation and a strong intervention regarding the connectivity between death and technology, a gripping metaphor about memory and the way to make or erase our own destiny. (Gantar Sinaga) (Ed. Vanis/Trans. Shafira Rahmasari)
Film Details
The Elderphone
Iqbal Keane Kembaren | 18 min | 2025 | North Sumatra
Official Selection for Lanskap
Festival Film Dokumenter 2025
