Batik, Beats & Bumbu
A documentary in which Claire Pijman follows a new generation of Indo-Dutch creators who bring the shared cultural history of the Netherlands and Indonesia to life through fashion, music, food and film.
Indonesia was a Dutch colony for over 350 years. Following the declaration of Indonesia’s independence, some 350,000 Dutch Indonesians came to their ‘homeland’, where they sought to build a new life. The first generation wanted above all to integrate quietly. The second generation drew on their parents’ ‘tempo doeloe’ (‘the good old days’) and formed a bridge between the first and subsequent generations. The third generation is curious about the land of their ancestors and their cultural heritage.
In this documentary, Claire Pijman profiles a group of third-generation creators. At the Guave fashion studio, Myrthe Groot and Romee Mulder design contemporary fashion using the batik technique. Sekan is not only a DJ and photographer but also the founder of the record label Jiwa2, which is breathing new life into Indonesian pop music from the 1970s and 1980s. Chef and food writer Vanja van der Leeden wants to look beyond the traditional Indonesian rice table, while the popular band Nusantara Beat builds bridges between languages, styles and generations through their music.