Terlena: Breaking of a Nation

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1h 29m | Documentary

One million - two million - maybe even three million people died in the aftermath of a 1965 military coup led by the general Suharto and supported by the West. Nobody knows the exact number; there were no records kept and no serious investigations made. Storytellers were murdered too; thrown in jail, forced to exile. Manuscripts and books were burned.

Film studios were closed down. Thinkers were tortured, murdered, forced to exile. That's what happened in Indonesia after the coup that was full-heartedly supported by the West. Until now, Indonesia remains the most "undocumented" major country on earth. Almost no great books and studies were ever written about it.

The few documentary films which were produced rely heavily on eyewitnesses from the West.

One reason for this is, of course, that famous "culture of silence". The film was shot in 2004, before the Presidential election, on several locations in Indonesia: in the capital Jakarta, in Bandung and Depok, in the ancient capital of Java - Jogyakarta and in Bali.