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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

“I’m portraying a shared history”: Mouly Surya on the IFFR 2025 closing film This City Is a Battlefield

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“I think a lot of what is happening in the world right now traces back to World War II” says Mouly Surya, the Indonesian filmmaker behind the IFFR 2025 closing film This City Is a Battlefield, explaining one of the many reasons why this period in Southeast Asian history demands our attention. Her 1946-set historical thriller follows Indonesia’s struggle for independence from Dutch colonial rule, marrying bloody action spectacle with seductive romance, jazz and rich period settings that tell a glaringly relevant story of the impact of war on ordinary people.

Surya’s previous film was the Netflix title Trigger Warning (2024) starring Jessica Alba. “I learned from America how to push myself and how not to censor myself.” Instead of worrying that they didn’t have the budget for particular scenes, she found ways to be creative. “Let’s try it. What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

“I don’t want to be known as just a female director”

That the film takes a close look at fragile masculinity also marks a departure for Surya, who across her previous work became synonymous with strong female characters.  “I don’t want to be known as just a female director. It’s kind of annoying”, as she explains how she’d like to shrug off this label. “A male director wouldn’t be acknowledged as a male director.” Instead she wants to indulge in the craft and set-out to make something akin to a Hollywood classic fused with local textures – “I love the art of filmmaking.”

She drew on her family history and the immediate relatives who lived through this period in Indonesia’s history to find her own perspective on the time. “It was a lot of trying to dig up memories” recalling how her uncle and father as fluent Dutch speakers would drop words into their sentences. “We didn’t know what any of it meant. That was how I actually made progress writing this movie.”

Film still: This City Is a Battlefield

“I think the development fund definitely pushes a script forward”

It’s one of the ways in which she approaches Indonesia’s colonial rule with a delicate complexity that looks into its deep cultural effects. For this she knew she wanted to work with a Dutch co-producer to offer creative input. Rotterdam’s Volya Films came onboard the project, and the film was supported on several occasions by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund – an important vote of confidence along the film’s development.

“It’s very hard to make a script because you don’t know which way is forward and which way is back”, she reflects on receiving Hubert Bals Fund Development Support. “I think the development fund definitely pushes a script forward.” It helped to fund research costs and translators, and later, with funds to support the film’s production and post-production offered by the Hubert Bals Fund in collaboration with the Netherlands Film Fund, meant they could hire professional actors from the Netherlands for the Dutch roles.

Film still: This City Is a Battlefield

“It feels like half of the DNA of the film is in the Netherlands”

Apart from a few nerves about whether she got those bits of Dutch nuance perfectly correct, she’s thrilled to screen it at the festival’s closing night. “It feels like half of the DNA of the film is in the Netherlands. I’m portraying a shared history as well, and I hope I did that justice.”

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