Djakarta 1946 - English subtitled + Zoom Q&A with director Mouly Surya
Romance and suspense are combined in this Indonesian historical thriller about a teacher who is working for the resistance and is ordered to kill a Dutch official.
Set in Jakarta in 1946, Isa, a thirty-five-year-old elementary school teacher, secretly assists the resistance during the Indonesian War of Independence. Together with his friend and student Hazil, they devise a plan to blow up a cinema where the Dutch colonisers and their British allies regularly gather. Their main target is Van Mook, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, who considers Indonesia his homeland. Against the backdrop of this high-stakes mission, a passionate affair between Hazil and Isa’s wife unfolds and threatens to endanger the operation.
An adaptation of a novel by Mochtar Lubis, the film portrays a complex piece of history with ceaseless dynamics, delivering a story of rebellion and human desire – political and romantic – that is as timely as ever.