This work tells the story of the daily lives of two ticketing cinema staff during two incidents that sparked the birth of democracy in Jakarta in 1998 and Gwangju in 1980. They never experienced it directly or went onto the streets to face the soldiers, yet the stories they heard and the voices that reached them felt like an endless war film replaying in their minds.
Country
Indonesia, South KoreaYear
2025Length
20'
Category
ExperimentalPremiere
Italian
Screenplay
Arief BudimanCinematography
Arief BudimanEditing
Arief BudimanMusic
Raja Kirik, Wukir SuryadiSound
Pandu MaulananProduction
Rugun Sirait, Eunha LeeDistribution
Piring TirbingSynopsis
Biography
Arief Budiman is an artist-filmmaker based in Yogyakarta, working with sonic traces, distorted histories, fabricated realities, desktop cinema, collage film, and media installations.
His practice engages with speculative histories, public archives, and collective memory to uncover hidden and erased narratives. Using archives and technology as tools, he opens up alternative ways of reading the past, blending fiction and non-fiction to construct multi-layered narratives that function as alternative histories. His works often draw from personal memories, oral histories, and popular culture—such as novels, music, and film. More recently, he has developed methods involving non-human elements to trace histories of violence in Indonesia and across Asia.
Statement
May 1980 in Gwangju and May 1998 in Jakarta illustrate how military brutality can destroy a society’s freedom. Citizens have the right to criticize government decisions, especially when their leader acts as a dictator. However, what happened instead was violence and repressive actions by the government.
I was not part of these historical events. May 1998 and May 1980 are events I never personally experienced, but their impact still lingers today. Then what about the stories of those who were in the same place but lacked the chance or ability to join the fight? Are they also considered part of that struggle and that historic moment?
— Arief Budiman
Archival materials
Photos of Buaran Cinema from Okinawan Agni M
Videos of Jakarta from the 1980s by Daniel Hardjono
Collection of May 18 Democratic Uprising Archives
Other photo and video archives related to the events that I found on the internet.
