Whispers in the Dabbas

Puspa, a novice lawyer handling trivial cases, fights for the cause of poor people accused of petty crimes and threatened with disproportionate punishment. As she takes on a rigged legal establishment, she must grapple with her crippling senses of powerlessness, and empathy.

Indonesian filmmaker Garin Nugroho returns to the festival with Whispers in the Dabbas, a distinctive, resonant blend of introspective character-driven drama with a political consciousness. Nugroho’s film is based on four real-life lawsuits from Indonesia’s recent legal history, cases that resulted in disproportionate, draconian sentences for powerless individuals on the wrong side of the corporate-government nexus.

Puspa is a lawyer fighting for the rights of such individuals victimised by the state: a wage labourer accused of stealing cocoa beans, a farmer charged with harming hybrid corn business, and her own brother persecuted for raising awareness against illegal shrimp farming. Her father having been incarcerated during the New Order regime, Puspa realises, with pained helplessness, the continuing abuse of the law despite political reformation.

The film makes us intimate with Puspa’s moral crisis, which exacerbates with every absurd case she handles. With simplicity and directness, Whispers in the Dabbas raises a voice for the ordinary people crushed by the establishment.

– Srikanth Srinivasan

Trailer

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•