Documentary Depicts Hope for Indonesia’s Next President

While the candidates in this year’s presidential election were busy campaigning – riding around in lavish cars and private airplanes – tens of million of Indonesians, were struggling to make ends meet. 

One of them was Amin Jalalen, 49, a landless farmer from Indramayu, West Java, who risked planting crops on government land in the hopes of earning some income. 

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“If we don’t have the courage to plant on the government’s land, what should we eat?”  Mr. Jalalen says in a new documentary about Indonesia’s recent elections. 

He is one of four characters depicted in “Yang Ketu7uh,” or The Seventh, a documentary that follows both the legislative and presidential elections through the eyes of ordinary people in Java, Indonesia’s main island. 

Amin Jalalen (left), a landless farmer from Indramayu, who risked planting crops on government land in the hopes of earning some income. 

Courtesy of WatchdoC

The film, whose title refers to Indonesia’s next president, the seventh in its 69-year history, was directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono, the founder of independent production house WatchdoC.

The other central characters in the film are Suparno, 56, a construction worker in Jakarta; Sutara, 45, a motorcycle taxi driver in Jakarta who lives in a 1.75 x 3.8 meter room with his wife and five children; and Nita, 60, a window who makes around 400,000 rupiah a month ($34) working as a maid in Banten.  Her salary is just enough to buy food – mainly rice, instant noodles, eggs – and help provide basic necessities for her family. 

The characters say the hardships they face determine what they expect from the next president and his administration.  Their main concerns, like those of many in a country where 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, include access to education, food, and healthcare. 

“Please don’t stop handouts and subsidy for the poor,” says Nita at the end of the film. 

“This is a film about people and their hopes for our next president,” Hellena Yoranita Souisa, the film’s co-director, told the Wall Street Journal during its first public screening in Jakarta’s Old City. 

The characters voted for different candidates, but their hopes for the government were similar – a sign that change was most important for voters. 

Ms. Souisa said the real focus of the film is on what elections mean for average Indonesians: a new government that would bring improvements. 

“I enjoyed the film, I think the characters here represent the views of the people,” said Rizki Saputra, a 19-year-old factory worker who attended the screening. “ The people’s hopes are for them to keep their promises.  Free education and healthcare.” 

The Seventh comprises footage shot by 19 video journalists working in seven cities from March to July.  It also includes historical footage from elections held during the time of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno – when voters displayed much of the same enthusiasm as in this year’s elections. 

WatchdoC hopes to screen the documentary in commercial theaters in the near future and also plans to host a series of independent screenings, said Ms. Souisa. 

(Correction: Indonesia’s six presidents since independence in 1945 are: Sukarno, Suharto, B. J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Sukarnoputri, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.  The original story incorrectly stated that president-elect Joko Widodo will be the seventh president since Suharto.) 

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