Steve Pillar Setiabudi

In May 1998 something happened in Indonesia that no one had thought possible. After persistent demonstrations, primarily by students, the repressive era of President Suharto came to an end. Many film makers from the present generation were closely involved in this revolution at the time. In this omnibus film, ten film makers look back on events.

Documentary filmmaker Steve Pillar Setiabudi (Pilar) initially wanted to get some insight on democracy and political awareness from his young subjects, a group of third year high school students in Solo, who are about to graduate soon and enter another phase of their lives as college students and would become eligible to give their votes on the upcoming election in 2009.

The life of a family in the village of Srunen, Sleman, on the slopes of Mount Merapi—captured briefly before and after the eruption. This film becomes a record of how people move through tragedy and rebuild their lives alongside a nature that continually renews itself.

When the bones of the military massacre victims of March 1966 were found in Wonosobo in 2002, old wounds resurface. This documentary shows how the conflict stays unresolved until present-day Indonesia.