DE, IDN 2012 | Director: Children of Srikandi Collective (Yulia Dwi Andriyanti, Laura Coppens, Hera Danish, Eggie Dian, Angelika Levi, Stea Lim, Imelda Taurina Mandala, Afank Mariani, Oji, Winnie Wibowo | Camera: Angelika Levi, Oji, Faozan Rizal | Editor: Angelika Levi | Music: Yacko, Jean-Philippe Coppens | Production: Laura Coppens, Angelika Levi | Colour | DCP | 73 min | indonesian OV with english SUB | Srikandi Films, Celestefilm

A little girl dreamt to be a boy. A bench becomes home and life witness. A house does not feel like home anymore. A veil makes you reflect about religion and sexuality. A verse of a poem is like a day in your life. A Love can be in between. A female stereotype can be deconstructed. A label can be changed.

These moving stories are interwoven with the tale of Srikandi that serves as the framework plot. Srikandi is an ancient mythological character of the Mahabharata, a well-known Indian epic. Even today Srikandi is still frequently used in the traditional Javanese shadow puppet theatre plays (wayang kulit). Srikandi is neither man nor women, fluently moving between both genders. Falling in love with a woman she has to understand that the only way to survive is to become a “female warrior”. Her story reminds us that same-sex love and gender variety were not imported from the West but in fact form a deep and ancient aspect of Indonesian society.

All started with a workshop. The idea was to collaborate on a film project that reflects on the participant’s lived experiences as queer women in Indonesia and at the same time provides them with the means for filmic self-representation. They were introduced to creative story telling and basic sound and camera operation. Over a period of two years the filmmaking became a true collective act. (Laura Coppens, Angelika Levi, 2012)