Best Indonesian documentary movies
A curated collection of popular documentary movies from Indonesia.
Jurnal Risa by Risa Saraswati (2024)
Jurnal Risa by Risa Saraswati (2024)
When a woman becomes possessed by an evil spirit, a team of horror-mystery journalists goes to the village that the spirit came from to try to free her.
Harta Tahta Raisa (2024)
Endank Soekamti: Rock For Kamtis (2013)
Position Among the Stars (2011)
Position Among the Stars (2011)
Through the eyes of grandmother Rumidjah, a poor old Christian woman living in the slums of Jakarta, we see the economical changing society of Indonesia and the influence of globalization reflected in the life of her juvenile granddaughter Tari and her sons Bakti and Dwi.
Help Is on the Way (2020)
Help Is on the Way (2020)
Help Is On The Way brings to the screen a busy training centre in Indonesia, that prepares women to work overseas as domestic workers. It is at times an emotional journey, but also funny, enlightening and a little competitive, offering a unique insight into a lifestyle not often seen on screen.
Jalanan (2014)
Jalanan (2014)
Jalanan is the captivating story of Boni, Ho and Titi - three gifted, charismatic bus musicians in Jakarta - and through them a mostly unknown story of contemporary Indonesia. Jalanan intimately portrays the young musicians' quirky sub-culture while also painting an alarming portrait of Indonesia's frenzied capital city that is raw, humorous and brutally honest. Jalanan accompanies the three characters as they perform songs of social angst, get caught in political unrest, face family crises and get locked up by police. It follows them to their distant home villages in Java and traces their elusive, heartfelt quest for identity and love in an adopted city rapidly being overrun by the effects of globalization. A powerful soundtrack of the musicians' original compositions drives the film.
It's Wijilan (2018)
It's Wijilan (2018)
Hellhouse is collective hiphop music that grows on the street of Wijilan area, an urban living society near Yogyakarta Palace. Hellhouse has blended with the hood for five years, and it initiates a non profit movement as a slide of loyalty to Wijilan for being the shade for Hellhouse.
Sexy Killers (2019)
Sexy Killers (2019)
An Indonesian documentary about the destructive impact of coal mining.
You and I (2020)
You and I (2020)
Kaminah and Kusdalini, met as Indonesian political detainees in 1965, when both were on the cusp of adulthood. After being rejected by her hometown, Kaminah went to live with Kusdalini. Since then, they have been inseparable, living together in Surakarta, Central Java. Now, in their 70s, they survive on the kindness of their neighbours, and the crackers that they sell. Growing old hand in hand, You and I charts a delicate moment in time when the pair are faced with the heartbreaking realities of growing old.
A Boarding School (2022)
A Boarding School (2022)
"Pesantren" offers rare access inside an Islamic boarding school, and an insight into a traditional educational system that fosters good character-building based on a peaceful religious teaching that has been practiced in Indonesia for centuries. Raising their students to respect and to have compassion towards others despite their differences, these schools are Indonesia's last defense in the face of today's rising extremism.
Downfall (2020)
Downfall (2020)
Downfall is a feature documentary film (122 minutes) which the award-winning Australian filmmaker - John Pilger - described as “a big, raw, angry, often eloquent work in its imagery.” Pilger concluded: “The rawness is so interesting; you wield it as a weapon of the truth and persuasion, and the images you bring together, almost defiantly, are often painful to watch. Thank you for making the film and for keeping alive the hope of an Indonesia before 1965.”
The Exiles (2024)
The Exiles (2024)
During the 1965 mass killings to eliminate the Indonesian Communist Party, the new regime banned scholars in the Soviet Union and China, forcing them into exile across Europe. This documentary follows those displaced individuals as they navigate the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, and Indonesia, reflecting on the traumatic events that uprooted their lives.
Nokas (2016)
Nokas (2016)
Nokas, a 27 years old man has a simple dream that is to marry his beloved Ci, a Timorese girl who works in a slaughterhouse in Sumili, Kupang. It is not easy to marry a Timorese girl who due to the belis or dowry a man has to pay. The amount varies but it is never a bargain. Sometimes such tradition makes marriage sound like a business transaction which the women become merely an object. In addition Nokas has to get another fund ready for two wedding ceremonies in two locations. Hailing from a poor family Nokas has to make a strategy in funding the costly wedding ceremonies many problems emerge from such big issue like the dowry he has to pay to the parents to the issue of wedding dress. With observational approach this movie is depicting the efforts of Nokas’s family in fulfilling his wedding expenses.
The Flame (2021)
The Flame (2021)
In the forests of Borneo, Iber Djamal has been fighting large-scale deforestation around his village for decades. But at 77, and despite unwavering devotion, the struggle becomes more and more illusory in the face of the voracity of the agribusiness monsters. An urgent and tragically universal ecological fable.
Falhan's Love (2021)
Falhan's Love (2021)
Untung and Nesti really love their 6 year old son who has autism. Their daily life becomes more challenging because both of their parents are disabled, but their love and passion is truly heartwarming.
Diary of Cattle (2019)
Diary of Cattle (2019)
In Indonesia, in the Padang district, an open landfill site borders the forest. A landscape of precipitous terrain, with its crest lines and its chasms, serves as a pasture for several hundred cows. Amidst the dance of the diggers and trucks discharging their loads onto the slopes of a mountain of rubbish, a herd makes its way through the chaos, in search of something to graze. This nightmarish decor in which bovines live, copulate, play, sleep and die, becomes the scene of an appalling spectacle.
Plastic Island (2021)
Plastic Island (2021)
Gede Robi, vocalist of Navicula, Tiza Mafira, lawyer from Jakarta & Prigi Arisandi, biologist & river guard from East Java in tracing plastic waste whose tracks have infiltrated the food chain & its impact on human health.
The Year of Living Vicariously (2005)
The Year of Living Vicariously (2005)
This split-screen documentary by a Malaysian director chronicles the shooting of the Indonesian film Gie (2005) in the middle of 2004, which is also when the country is undergoing its first direct presidential elections. Opinions from the cast, crew and extras of the film are sought on politics, filmmaking and the national myths of the past and present.
The EndGame (2021)
The EndGame (2021)
Will this really be the last round against corruption?
Prison and Paradise (2010)
Prison and Paradise (2010)
After the 2002 bombing in Bali, this documentary interviewed jihadists and victims. More broadly, it addresses the discourse on terrorism, jihad, Islam political movement, war on terror agenda, and how this discourse shapes the future of the children, both of perpetrators’ as well as victims.
Serambi (2005)
Serambi (2005)
A college student, a young female dancer, an orphaned adolescent, a rickshaw driver, and an eternal optimist all discuss the manner in which the 2004 tsunami set into motion by an Indian Ocean earthquake dramatically altered their lives in filmmaker Garin Nugroho's reflective documentary.
The Globalisation Tapes (2003)
The Globalisation Tapes (2003)
Filmed by Indonesian workers during their working hours on rubber and palm oil plantations, this film exposes the devastating role of militarism and repression in building the “global economy.” Through chilling first hand accounts, hilarious improvised interventions, collective debate, and archival footage, the film explores the relationships between trade, Third World debt, and international institutions like the IMF and World Bank.
The Poet (2000)
The Poet (2000)
The poet Ibrahim Kadir plays himself in a political drama about his arrest and incarceration in Aceh in the 1960s. Kadir survived the mass murder of suspected communists by the Indonesian government that cost between 500,000 and two million lives.
Tour on Mud (2017)
Tour on Mud (2017)
Eleven years has passed, 16 villages are flooded by mud in Sidoarjo. Locals are forced to get used to the disaster and managed to create jobs on their own. They are selling the view of their drowned villages as tourist attraction and motorbike taxis to ride along the mud shore. Everyday, the motorbike taxi drivers shares their experience when the mud erupted and drowned their villages with the tourists.
Mayday! May day! Mayday! (2022)
Mayday! May day! Mayday! (2022)
In their five-year ongoing strike, the workers are still surviving and struggling to make ends meet. Deni Purba sells used clothes after being released from prison. Steven Yawan who still continues to speak loudly in the capital. Musyawir with his expertise in coffee tells the story of the brutal actions at the beginning of the strike.
Walking Under Water (2014)
Walking Under Water (2014)
In the crystal clear waters off the coast of Borneo, a unique way of life threatens to disappear forever. For generations, the Badjao were oceanic nomads, living in harmony with the sea as fishermen and free divers. Nowadays, however, only a few Badjao remain, like Alexan, who still remembers the old ways. He hopes to pass his knowledge along to his ten-year-old nephew Sari, but time and opportunities are running out. Sari loves the sea, but it can only offer a hard life of subsistence fishing, while the nearby tourist resort sings a siren song of easy money.