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‘A Daughter’s Memory’: A voice for the forgotten
Kartika Pratiwi’s striking award-winning animated short, A Daughter’s Memory, tells the story of a woman whose father was a victim of the Indonesian mass killings in 1965-66.
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Award-winning: Kartika Pratiwi's animation "A Daughter’s Memory" sheds more light on the events of 1965. (Courtesy of Kartika Pratiwi/-)
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fter Kartika Pratiwi first read Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s literary tetralogy, she was left with many questions and deep curiosity – in particular, she wanted to find out more about Indonesia’s history, the part that had been conveniently left out during her own education.
With a master’s degree in humanities from Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta, Tika, as she is better known, began working as an independent researcher with a focus on the narrative discourse of the 1965 tragedy, which is perhaps the darkest chapter in the country’s history. In 2008, she founded Kotakhitam Forum.
“It is an independent organization that is dedicated to conducting research, workshops and making documentaries for social and political change, with the idea of recording the accounts of witnesses and survivors of the mass killings,” Tika said.
She became involved in producing video archives on Indonesian political history and collective memory, as well as documentaries, including Yang Bertanah Air, Tak Bertanah (2008), r.i. (2010) and Api Kartini (Kartini’s fire, 2012).
A Daughter’s Memory, which took home the awards for Best Film and Best Animation at ReelOzInd, is Tika’s latest effort on the subject.
This animated documentary-based oral history sees a woman named Svetlana tell her own story and that of her family, which is intricately linked to the civil unrest of 1965 – the year she last saw her father, was imprisoned herself and tasked with cleaning the interrogation room, which was often covered with blood stains.
“When we decided to produce A Daughter’s Memory, we wanted to make a film with a simple narrative about memory that also delivers a strong and powerful message,” Tika said.
