The Seen and Unseen
DFI Cinema - Doha Film Institute
Kamila Andini / Indonesia, Netherlands, Australia, Qatar / 2017 / 85 min / Unknown / DCP / In Indonesian / Arabic, English subtitles
Themes: Coming-of-Age, Drama
Rated: 
Parental guidance is advised for viewers under the age of 13. Individuals under the age of 13 are not admitted into cinemas unless accompanied by an individual aged 18 or older.
Description
In a village in Bali, ten-year-old Tantri and her twin brother Tantra are inseparable best friends who steal eggs from the family offerings and play together under the moon. Then Tantra falls gravely ill. As he lies in a hospital bed, his body failing, Tantri retreats into the magical, parallel worlds the two of them have always shared. By night she dresses in costume and paints her body, dances with the moon and the animals of the rice fields, and speaks to her brother in the only language that still reaches him. The boundary between the living and the dead, the seen and the unseen, dissolves, and she begins, in her own way, to say goodbye.
Drawing on the Balinese philosophy of sekala and niskala, the visible and invisible worlds that exist side by side, Kamila Andini’s second feature is a film of extraordinary stillness and beauty, told almost entirely through movement, ritual and the faces of its two young non-professional leads. Supported by the Doha Film Institute, it premiered in Platform at Toronto before winning the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus jury at the Berlinale, Best Youth Feature at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the Golden Hanoman at Jogja-NETPAC. A quietly devastating portrait of childhood grief, and one of the most original Indonesian films of its decade.
Director
Kamila Andini
Credits
- Screenwriter
- Kamila Andini
- Producer
- Kamila Andini, Gita Fara
- Cinematographer
- Anggi Frisca
- Editor
- Dinda Amanda, Dwi Agus
- Music
- Yasuhiro Morinaga
- Cast
- Ni Kadek Thaly Titi Kasih, Ida Bagus Putu Radithya Mahijasena, Ayu Laksmi