Bachtiar

After over a decade in prison, little trace of filmmaker and member of the leading Communist cultural movement Bachtiar Siagian’s life and work could be found, but Hafiz Rancajale still searched. Alongside his colleagues, they revise his mis-slandered history.

Bachtiar Siagian was one of the greatest Indonesian filmmakers active between the nation’s independence and the events of autumn 1965, which led to the persecution and often the murder of left-wingers and others deemed subversive. Siagian, one of the most prominent members of Indonesia’s leading Communist cultural movement, Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat, ended up in prison for twelve years, never to direct a film again. 

Neglect as well as Suharto’s terror destroyed most traces of Bachtiar Siagian’s life and work. Forum Lenteng axiom Hafiz Rancajale went out to unearth what still could be found; Siagian’s daughter was of great help as were survivors of the massacres who knew and remembered him, like the late Amrus Natalsya.

Bachtiar became several things at once: a portrait of a seminal filmmaker including a revision of the slanderous way he was described in official historiography for too long; an essay about Indonesia’s darkest hour in the 20th century and an applied example of how to investigate the past. Don’t miss the chance to watch Bachtiar’s recently rediscovered masterpiece Turang (1957)!

– Olaf Möller

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