FFF24 Closing & Awards Ceremony | Eksil

Eksil (2022)

During the 1965 mass killings and political upheavals to eliminate the Indonesian Communist Party, the new government banned hundreds of Indonesian scholars in the Soviet Union and China from their homeland, forcing them to exile across European countries without status. Shifting between the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, and Indonesia, this documentary follows those whose lives were uprooted decades ago as they recall the fate-changing events and strive to find the closest way to feel home. It’s a story of life built over trauma, the right to reclaim national identity, and a quest to define home through a collective of heartbreaking memories preserved by a group of cast-out intellectuals.

• Runtime: 110 mins
• Country: Indonesia
• Film Language: Bahasa Indonesia
• Subtitle Language: English 

* Eksil won the Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2023 Indonesian Film Festival and Best Film during the Indonesian Screen Awards section at the 17th Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival. 

Lola Amaria

Lola Amaria, born in Jakarta on July 30, 1977, started her early career as an actress working with notable Indonesian directors and in various Asian co-productions. She began directing her first feature fiction BETINA (2006) and won the NETPAC Award at Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival. Her second feature SUNDAY MORNING IN VICTORIA PARK (2009) was nominated for Best Southeast Asian Film at Cinemanila International Film Festival 2010, won the Silver Hanoman Award at Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival, and received nine nominations as well as one award for Best Editing from Festival Film Indonesia, an Oscar equivalent for Indonesian film awards. Lola also directed and produced the Omnibus film SANUBARI JAKARTA (2012), nominated for Maya Awards. She continued to produce and direct films that widely gained national recognition, including one that talked about power politics and sex in COUNTRY WITHOUT EARS (2014), the high maternal mortality rate on the eastern island of Indonesia in INERIE (2014), a story about disability in JINGGA (2016), the beauty of the Komodo archipelago was highlighted in LABUAN HATI (2017), the story of the five precepts of Pancasila in LIMA (2018) and her latest feature fiction tells the story of the Indonesian spider woman Aries Susanti and her rock-climbing career in the film 6.9 SECONDS (2019). EKSIL (2022) is her documentary directorial debut.