I Watch You Watch Them

This is about Minke, a Javanese minor nobleman who lived during the Dutch East Indies colonialism. He is a reflection of Raden Mas Tirto Adhi Soerjo, a movement figure during the Dutch East Indies colonial period who founded the Sarekat Prijaji organization. He was also a pioneer of Indonesian journalism, publishing the first Malay-language newspaper, Medan Prijaji. The chronicle of Minke’s journey of thought and struggle is described in the historical romance Buru Quartet. These four books are literary works written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer during his political incarceration on Buru Island. A masterpiece that describes the details of colonialism in the form of thoughts and encounters of people.
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The three films in this program are part of the Minke Project, a project to read the Buru Quartet and use it as inspiration to produce films. The three works are: Sparrow in the Storm (Van Luber Parensen, 2023), Sugar Map (Ali Satri Effendi, 2023), dan I Watch You Watch Them (Helmi Yusron, 2023) are the three films produced in the final period of study of the 6th batch of MILISIFILEM class (Edelweiss batch).

MILISIFILEM is a platform established by Forum Lenteng in September 2017 that specifically explores visual production practices, both technically and in contexts related to current socio-cultural issues. Regularly, MILISIFILEM organizes training on visual fundamentals in an interdisciplinary manner, using a participatory and collaborative approach. Participants explore the possibilities of visual experimentation and build collective discipline in producing visual works. MILISIFILEM specifically engages participants to explore art and cultural activism in order to face the challenges of changing times.

– Otty Widasari
Programmer