Indonesia Videos - The Documentary Network

Bandung: Street Food City

Documentary.net staff — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 12:34:32 +0000

The documentary is a colourful and mouth-watering trip through the street food culture of Bandung, Indonesia, a city famed for its culinary adventurism. These are the street food sellers of Bandung, the fourth largest city of Indonesia, where you’re never more than 100 yards away from something delicious. The street food culture is fuelling a series of festivals which are at the heart of this creative city.

Blood Sacrifice in Indonesia

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 13:02:16 +0000

‘Blood Sacrifice in Indonesia’ is a Vice Guide to Travel film about an annual spear-throwing ritual battle on horseback called the Pasola. Taking place every year on Sumba - an Indonesian island that was cut off from the rest of the world for so long that ancient, animistic traditions have managed to survive - the Pasola is a mix between a blood sacrifice and harvest-ritual. Presented by VICE correspondent, Milène Larsson, the film follows the lead up to the Pasola, the event itself, and its aftermath. The people of Sumba have long held the belief that both animal and human blood needs to be spilled on the earth to ensure a good harvest. This belief manifests in the annual Pasola: a major gladiatorial-style event that takes over the island and its inhabitants, culminating with two teams of young Sumbanese men on horseback launching spears at their fellow riders and very much looking to spill blood. If you kill someone during the Pasola, there are no repercussions and you don't go to jail; the local traditions are so ingrained that the Indonesian law system steps back and lets local priests called Ratus handle business. Decapitations still happen on the island, so ritualized violence like during the Pasola provides a way of resolving disputes between the clans without too much bloodshed. As well as being famed for their horse-riding skills (earning the nickname "the cowboys of South East Asia"), the Sumbanese are also infamously headhunters; one of their traditional symbols is the skull tree - a tree where defeated enemy-clans' chopped off heads were hung. VICE meets the island’s most respected warriors, one of whom shows us around his hut, complete with Britney Spears posters. Since money came to the Island a decade ago, the barter economy is slowly disappearing, the youth ride motorbikes instead of horses, and cheap plastic packaging is replacing the eco-friendly palm leaf wrappings. With tourists starting to creep over from Bali, will the ancient Pasola festival soon become a sideshow attraction, or even disappear altogether as Western modernity reaches Sumba?

Bali – Indonesia’s Killing Fields

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 08:21:00 +0000

It was one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century, well hidden from the outside world - the systematic killing of communists or alleged communists in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966. Researchers estimate that between one and three million people died. Never before have the executioners spoken out in as much detail as in the recently-released documentary The Act of Killing. In this film, killers in North Sumatra give horrifying accounts of their executions, and even re-enact them. The killers have always considered themselves heroes because their acts were supported by the government and large parts of society. Many executions were directly committed by the military. In the years that followed, Indonesians were bombarded with anti-communist propaganda and, until today, most people do not know what really happened. The film, and a recent report by the Indonesian national human rights commission that called the killings crimes against humanity, have launched a new debate on how the country should deal with this very traumatic past. Mass graves have yet to be exhumed and victims are yet to see some kind of justice. In many villages, killers and victims' relatives are still living with the awkward reality that 'our neighbour has killed my father'. Step Vaessen talks to former executioners and finds out why so many people - mostly Muslim youths - turned into cold-blooded killers, and why this dark episode in Indonesian history is still very sensitive and alive today.

Bali: Paving Paradise – Is Mass Tourism destroying the Island?

Documentary.net staff — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:59:44 +0000

Decades of unchecked mass tourism has left Indonesia's resort of island of Bali - known as the Island of the Gods - with a host of problems including over-development, mountains of trash and pollution. The film follows Balinese youths as they fight to save their unique tropical idyll of ancient temples, terraced rice paddy fields and spectacular surfing beaches before it's too late. Over the last 40 years Bali has gone from being a spiritual, low-key holiday destination to an international tourist hot spot. Now it's stretched to breaking point, with a waste problem that's out of control. Since the late 1970's the number of tourists visiting Bali each year has exploded to well over two and a half million. Combined with the local population, Bali generates thousands of tons of rubbish each day that floats down the rivers and out to the sea, piling up on the world famous Kuta Beach. There's a growing resistance - particularly among young Bali locals - to this rampant development on the island and tourism at any cost. Yet farmers are still selling their land to developers, fuelling a real estate boom that's driving prices through the roof. "Tourists are not destroying Bali, the greedy investors are destroying Bali", says Bali's governor, Made Pastika. For locals, like surf legend Mega, Bali stands to lose more that just its beautiful natural environment. "If every place is like Kuta with high-rise buildings everywhere then Bali is not like Bali anymore. If that happens it's like our souls are lost."