The Science of Fictions

During the 1960s, the quiet Siman encounters a foreign film crew filming a fake moon landing in a desolate part of Indonesia. His tongue is cut out and after this traumatising incident he loses himself in dreams of becoming an astronaut. His muteness and strange, slow-motion gait make him a target for scorn and exploitation. Simultaneously, in the village, a colourful soldier parodies Suharto.

The non-linear story plays out during a number of historic moments, told in different ways as time passes, including the moon landing, Suharto's coup and the subsequent communist persecutions. Director Yosep Anggi Noen's third feature film uses every imaginable cinematographic means to comment on the re-writing of history, fake news, technology's role and its influence on how people interact.