Segudang Wajah Para Penantang Masa Depan (The Myriad of Faces of the Future Challengers, 2022)

Indonesian cinema has undergone several cycles of collapse and rebirth, including during the period of the New Order. Under the authoritarian rule of Suharto, who became Indonesia’s de facto leader in 1966, the regime was marked by stark contradictions: virulent anti-Communism, systemic corruption, and violent repression that existed alongside rapid — though highly unequal — economic growth. To cement its version of national history, the regime produced a series of large-scale propaganda epics. Several of these films were institutionalised as required viewing in schools and broadcasted annually on national television, embedding the state’s historical narrative in the public imagination. Drawing on clips sourced from YouTube and low-resolution VCD copies, Mika and Aditya assemble a dense audiovisual analysis of these films’ formal language, revealing striking parallels between their cinematic codes and the textures of everyday life under authoritarian rule.