25 Minutes | Documentary | Indonesian, Mandarin
My Grandmother Is A Bird
Schedule
XXI 5 | THU 1 DEC | 15:00
Indonesia Premiere
Synopsis
In the 1960s, the Indonesian government forced ethnically-Chinese people to choose between Indonesian or Chinese citizenship. If they chose Indonesian, they were obliged to change their Chinese name into an Indonesian name. Still a taboo subject in Indonesia, this magical-realist documentary follows 87-year-old Indriati, who is haunted by her past name in the form of a silver bird that follows her everywhere she goes. As Indriati goes about her quiet routine, a bird sits on a windowsill, spying on her. Its silver skin is almost mythical in appearance.
Director
Andrea Suwito
Production Company
Talamedia
Contact:
mm@talamedia.co
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Director's Profile
Andrea Suwito
Andrea Suwito is an independent documentary filmmaker from Semarang, Indonesia. Her films focus on character-driven narratives especially on underrepresented communities. She is also working on films around Chinese-Indonesians, a topic still taboo and often erased in the history of Indonesia. She worked at VICE Indonesia where she helped produce immersive documentary series about the weird, wild, and wonderful cultures that make up modern Indonesia. She is currently an Erasmus+ Scholar for the highly selective DocNomads program. She was also a fellow of Scottish Documentary Institute’s Connecting Stories 2021 for hear feature length documentary, "A Distant Call".
