“There is no shade on every road I travel, there is no shade on every road you travel.”
The above sentence is a verse that appears in When the Blues Goes Marching In (Beny Kristia, 2025), representing the entire content of the film, all the college students’ nightmares––in fact, all of our nightmares.
Being a college student means being a person who must go through countless ways to voice our opinions, criticize, and contest. Director Beny Kristia utilizes the audiovisual medium to convey ideas through a narrative of a college student’s contestation of those in power. Technical exploration is conveyed through poetry, a series of shots, and meaningful color editing. This film implies the trauma and harm done in the country repeatedly through the narrator and the father. Both become symbols of satire that seem to ask, “Why does this continue to happen?”
Closing the film, we meet a group of crew members and a group of students who have just finished filming. They stand in a circle on a field with many others celebrating their graduation in the background. It seems to mark the end of their education and the film, but it is also a reflection on their struggle, which, ideally, will never end. (FadliAwan) (Ed/Trans. Vanis)
Film Details
When the Blues Goes Marching In (Pengais Mimpi)
Beny Kristia | 12 min | 2025 | East Java, Indonesia
In Competition for Student Documentary
Festival Film Dokumenter 2025
