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“Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” (2008) was the Indonesian filmmaker Edwin's first feature film which was very well received and earned him several awards including the Netpac Award at the Taipei Horse Film Festival; the Silver Montgolfiere at the Nantes Three Continents Festival and the Fipresci Prize at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. For his “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” (2021) he won Best Director at the Indonesian 42nd Citra Awards and the Golden Leopard at the Switzerland Locarno Film Festival.

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“Borderless Fog”, original title “Kabut Berduri”, is Edwin's latest crime thriller streaming on Netflix. The intense story takes place at the Indonesia-Malaysia border, in the thick and steaming rainforest of Borneo Island where the Dayaks, Malay and Chinese live. Back in the late 60s to the late 90s, both the Malaysian and Indonesian military worked side...

Yosep Anggi Noen, whose “24 Hours With Gaspar” premiered at Busan and is playing at the Red Sea and Singapore festivals, has lined up his next movie, an untitled horror film.

The film is produced by Palari Films, the Jakarta-based production company behind Edwin’s “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,” which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2021. Noen is no stranger to Locarno glory himself, having been nominated in 2012 for “Peculiar Vacation and Other Illnesses” and in 2016 for “Solo, Solitude” and scored a special mention in 2019 for “The Science of Fictions.”

The untitled horror-drama-thriller film, produced by Palari’s Muhammad Zaidy and Meiske Taurisia, will unite acclaimed actors Happy Salma and Putri Marino for the first time. Salma was nominated for best actress at the Asian Film Awards and best performance at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for Kamila Andini’s “Before Now & Then” (2022). Palari is...

Edwin, the Locarno-winning director from Indonesia, is using the Taiwan Creative Content Fest’s project market to bring his “Sleep No More” to fruition. The dark fantasy film is being structured as an Indonesian-Taiwan coproduction and should shoot in the third quarter of next year.

With four Citra awards in his native Indonesia, Edwin has been a regular fixture on the art-house and festival circuits since breaking out in 2005 with his “Dajang Soembi, the Woman Who Was Married to a Dog.” His 2021 feature “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” won the Golden Leopard top prize at Locarno.

The new film’s story is set in an Indonesian factory that manufactures custom-made fake body parts. Its workers have hidden dark and greedy sides and the place’s elderly owner knows how to bring out those demons. Despite being warned by a Taiwanese visitor, a young woman seeks out the factory’s secret.

The financing and development platform at Tiffcom will take place in person for the first time.

The Tokyo Gap-Financing Market (Tgfm) has revealed the 15 projects selected for financing and development at Tiffcom, the content market of Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).

The 4th edition of Tgfm will take place in-person for the first time from October 25-27, having launched during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when all industry activity took place online.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Projects include The Fox King by Malaysia’s Woo Ming Jin, whose revenge thriller Stone Turtle premiered in competition at Locarno in...

Indonesian director Edwin is not an unfamiliar name in the festival circuit. His debut feature, “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” (2008), won several international awards. His second full-length movie “Postcards from the Zoo” (2021) marked the return of Indonesian cinema to the main competition after almost five decades of absence. His latest venture “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash”, which grabbed Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno, however, differs significantly from his previous works. So far Edwin has romanced with art house dramas. “Vengeance…”, an adaptation of Booker-nominated novel by Eka Kurniawan’s (script’s co-author), as its batty title might suggest, swings to more commercial territories.

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash is Available now on Arrow and out on Blu-ray 19th Sept

Having set his story in the late 80s, Edwin re-visits the popular cinema of the era. He nods not only to Indonesian movies (with...

The 11th annual First Look festival at the Museum of the Moving Image released its star-studded lineup February 7.

The festival, which is set to take place March 16–20 at the MoMI museum in Astoria, Queens, will open with the New York City premiere of Camera d’Or winner “Murina.” Director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović was honored with the title at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival for Best First Feature, and the film is executive produced by Martin Scorsese.

“Murina” is a coming-of-age story set in a scenic coastal Croatian town. Also on March 16, Tsai Ming-Liang’s ode to Hong Kong, “The Night,” will host its New York premiere. Closing Night selection and 2021 Locarno Grand Prix winner “The Balcony Movie” finishes off the festival.

The First Look festival features “new and innovative international cinema.” Spotlight screenings include the New York premiere of “Zero Fucks Given,” starring Adèle Exarchopoulos as a flight attendant in crisis,...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

Two years into the pandemic, we’re still living through a collective nightmare, a cycle of crisis/reprieve/next-wave that can be so demoralizing. All the more reason, then, to be thankful for the filmmakers who soldiered on, telling stories that helped to make things feel less bad.

What a joy it was to travel through Siberia with the protagonists of Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment Number 6 and be reminded of the sparks of chemistry we share with random passers-by in our lives. How healing it felt to see a deep, life-changing bond develop between two strangers in Japanese filmmaker Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s poetic Murakami adaptation Drive My Car. And bless Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier for the bittersweet ride that is The Worst Person in the World,...

The Bangkok Asean Film Festival kicked off on Wednesday evening with the screening of “One Second” Zhang Yimou’s homage to cinema and veiled critique of China’s Cultural Revolution.

The festival runs Dec 8-13 and is one of the first major cultural showcases to take place in person after Thailand has opened its borders to welcome visitors. Fully-vaccinated international visitors to Thailand no longer needs to go through quarantine, though they are required to have a Pcr test upon arrival.

Coincidentally, it is taking place in the week that film trade show and convention CineAsia was to have taken place in the city. CineAsia was canceled due to the uncertainty of Thailand’s Covid response and anticipated travel difficulties.

The non-competitive feature film part of the program includes: the Locarno-winning “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” by Indonesian director Edwin; Cambodian Kavich Neang’s Venice entry “White Building...

The 32nd Singapore International Film Festival (Sgiff) concluded on Sunday night after 11 days of film screenings, panel discussions, and talent development programmes that celebrated the continuity of film and storytelling in Singapore and beyond. With over 100 film titles from more than 40 countries that were screened across 7 theatres, including a special live music showcase for the Singapore Panorama feature film

“Scene UnSeen“, completed by the late Abdul Nizam and Friends, this was one of the largest line-ups Sgiff has put up in recent years.

This year also saw an increase in the number of sold-out screenings — totalling 40 — among them was this year’s opening film, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash by Indonesian film director Edwin. A co-production between Indonesia, Singapore and Germany, this was one of six local co-productions this year, aptly demonstrating the spirit of community and collaboration within the film industry, even in a divisive world.

“It...

Acclaimed Germany based Indonesian filmmaker Monica Vanesa Tedja is preparing for her feature directorial project “Dear Family,” selected at the Southeast Asia Film Lab, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival.

Tedja got hooked on the medium watching her father film family vacations with his handycam when she was seven. She studied filmmaking for her bachelors degree in Indonesia and made several shorts among which “How to Make a Perfect Xmas Eve” (2012) was a Blencong Award nominee at the Jogja-netpac Asian Film Festival. She went on to do a masters in film directing in Germany and her 2021 thesis short film “Dear to Me,” won the German young talent award First Steps, for graduation films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland and also scored a special mention at Locarno.

“Dear Family,” an observation of Asian family dynamics, will follow Tim, whose devout Christian parents find out about his same-sex attraction and...

The Philippines is a vibrant filmmaking region in Asia and that brio is underlined by the brace of projects from the country selected at the Southeast Asia Film Lab, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival.

Paul Rembert Patindol (sometimes credited as PR Patindol) was training to be a chemist but he came to a point in life where he needed a different kind of magic, and turned to filmmaking instead.

His short “Hilom” won the youth jury prize at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2016, in addition to awards at Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival and the Famas Awards.

His new work, “Rafael” is a deeply personal project, where in four generations, the name ‘Rafael’ and his image are passed on from father to son, and carried to cities on different islands, even outside the bloodline.

“I wished I knew my grandparents well. I wish I talked to my father more.

The next generation of Singaporean filmmakers are displaying the rich tapestry of the city-state’s culture at the Southeast Asian Film Lab, which is part of the Singapore Media Festival.

Shopping malls are an intrinsic part of Singaporean culture and for Dewi Tan, who is from an anthropology and environmental science background, they are endlessly fascinating. The filmmaker’s lab project “Practical(ly) Consumption,” currently in the script development stage, follows a secondary school boy who gets into trouble stealing a supermarket trolley.

“Malls are more than a space to hang out or get your daily needs, it is also a place of self-discovery that often project and engineer societal ideals,” Tan told Variety. “In many ways, this film is an experimental and exploratory take on the essence of the Singaporean hunger for endless consumption – a meandering piece that’s ‘something about nothing’ in an air-conditioned sanctuary, amidst an inescapable urban heat.

Indonesian director Edwin is not an unfamiliar name in the festival circuit. His debut feature, “Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly” (2008), won several international awards. His second full-length movie “Postcards from the Zoo” (2021) marked the return of Indonesian cinema to the main competition after almost five decades of absence. His latest venture “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash”, which grabbed Golden Leopard at this year’s Locarno, however, differs significantly from his previous works. So far Edwin has romanced with art house dramas. “Vengeance…”, an adaptation of Booker-nominated novel by Eka Kurniawan’s (script’s co-author), as its batty title might suggest, swings to more commercial territories.

“Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” is screening at Five Flavours Asian Film Festival

Having set his story in the late 80s, Edwin re-visits the popular cinema of the era. He nods not only to Indonesian movies (with a special place...

Indian helmer Pan Nalin’s “Last Film Show” walked off on Saturday with the top prize, the Golden Spike, at the 66th Valladolid Intl. Film Festival, one of Spain’s biggest and oldest film events and a bastion of festival-prized art film titles.

The French-Indian co-production marks Nalin’s homage to celluloid and is told through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy whose life is turned on its head after he watches his first film at the cinema. World premiering at Tribeca, it became the first foreign-language feature to score as the first runner up for Tribeca’s Audience Award.

Writer and director Pan Nalin said: “What we started in our solitude in a remote countryside of Gujarat has now started to echoing in multitudes the world over. Winning the best picture Golden Spike at the Seminci is like belonging to the rich history of cinema that Valladolid has stood for nearly seven decades.

The Singapore International Film Festival is to be held as an in-person event this year, after operating as an online-offline hybrid in 2020. It will open with Indonesian filmmaker Edwin’s “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” and run Nov. 25- Dec. 5, 2021.

With a new program director, Thong Kay Wee the festival will be aligned as five new thematic strands: Foreground, Milestone, Standpoint, Undercurrent and Domain. It will also maintain its Singapore Panorama section dedicated to local works and its familiar Asian feature competition and Southeast Asian short film competition.

The competition includes: Palestinian director Mohamed Diab’s “Amira”; Thai director Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s “Anatomy of Time”; Aizhan Kassymbek’s “Fire”; Panah Panahi’s ”Hit The Road”; Chinese director Qiu Jiongjiong’s “A New Old Play”; Indian Oscar-contender “Pebbles,” by P.S. Vinothraj; Bangladesh’s Oscar contender “Rehana” by Abdullah Mohammad Saad; “Whether the Weather is Fine,” by Filipino director Carlo Francisco Manatad...

Festival

The 65th BFI London Film Festival (Oct. 6 – 17) has added George Clooney’s “The Tender Bar,” starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan and Lily Rabe, to the program. Clooney is expected to be in attendance. The film follows a boy growing up on Long Island who seeks out father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar.

Also added to the programme is Indonesian filmmaker Edwin‘s film adaptation of Eka Kurniawan’s acclaimed novel about an impotent aspiring assassin – “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash.”

The festival has also revealed the first of its 2021 Screen Talk line-up, which is supported by The Liberation Initiatives, with acclaimed directors Jane Campion, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Asghar Farhadi joining “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong and Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie for a series of in-person talks.

Meanwhile, the surprise film at the ongoing San Sebastian Film Festival is Pablo Larraín‘s “Spencer,” with Kristen Stewart playing Diana,...

The BFI London Film Festival — which launches on Oct. 6 — has added another high-profile feature to its already heady lineup of films.

George Clooney’s coming-of-age Amazon drama The Tender Bar — starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan and Lily Rabe — will have its international premiere on Oct. 10 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, with Clooney expected to be among the attendees.

Also added to the program is Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash from Indonesian director Edwin, an adaptation of Eka Kurniawan’s acclaimed novel about an impotent aspiring assassin.

The festival, operating as a physical ...

The BFI London Film Festival — which launches on Oct. 6 — has added another high-profile feature to its already heady lineup of films.

George Clooney’s coming-of-age Amazon drama The Tender Bar — starring Ben Affleck, Tye Sheridan and Lily Rabe — will have its international premiere on Oct. 10 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall in London, with Clooney expected to be among the attendees.

Also added to the program is Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash from Indonesian director Edwin, an adaptation of Eka Kurniawan’s acclaimed novel about an impotent aspiring assassin.

The festival, operating as a physical ...

Cult classics generally don’t happen on purpose and they usually don’t happen in just 10 days, either. Sam Raimi shot “Evil Dead” on a budget that would’ve paid for only half a shoestring back in 1981; Oliver Benjamin founded Dudeism, a religion inspired by the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski,” in 2005, 7 years after the film premiered; SNL’s “MacGyver” parody, “MacGruber,” crashed and burned at the box office and with critics in 2010 then rose from the ashes over the following decade, embraced as the masterpiece that it is.

Continue reading ‘Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash’: An Offbeat Martial Arts Romance That Really Wants To Become A Cult Classic [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Back in the ‘80s, martial arts B-movies from Hong Kong made their way into Indonesian cinema. People were obsessed with them because they were fun and entertaining, and most of all reflected the hyper-machismo culture that bloomed in the country during the regime of Soeharto from the late ‘60s to the end of the ‘90s. Most Indonesian men, influenced by how the country was ruled, were all about virility. If they didn’t know how to fight, they weren’t manly enough. However, in Edwin’s brilliant and offbeat sixth feature, the Golden Leopard-winning Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, this toxic trait of the country gets knocked down in a story about erectile dysfunction.

Based on Eka Kurniawan’s book Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas, the movie centers on Ajo Kawir (Mathino Lio), a twenty-something man from the outskirts of Bandung. A thug who fears nothing but his reputation as a man,...

Only guys who can’t get hard fight with no fear of death. […] He’d seen it, nestling like a newly hatched baby bird – curled into itself, looking hungry and cold. Sometimes in the morning when its owner had just awoken, it seemed longer, full of urine, but it couldn’t stand up. It couldn’t get hard.

These are the words that introduce the story of Ajo Kawir, the protagonist of the Indonesian bestseller book written by Eka Kurniawan, “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash”. With limp dicks marking the metaphor of flaccidity of toxic masculinity, Kurniawan encapsulated Indonesian machismo culture. He finds poetry in the mugs marred by the worn-out fists, but the bruises are always next to the shivering of a dusty heart. Romantic or not, “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” enthrals the reader with the intensity of shades: a love story filled as...

IDFA will present its lifetime achievement award to revered Armenian director Artavazd Peleshyan.

International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) will present its lifetime achievement award to revered Armenian director Artavazd Peleshyan whose essay films have had a strong influence on the work on filmmakers including Jean-Luc Godard and Atom Egoyan. IDFA is set to take place from November 17-28 in Amsterdam.

Now in his 80s, Peleshyan is expected to make it to Amsterdam for this year’s festival. His latest film La Nature, 15 years in the making, will also be part of the official programme.

“He is coming back with...

Locarno 2021 Golden Leopard Winner

The 74th edition of the Locarno Film Festival came to a close over the weekend, with Indonesian film director Edwin scooping the Golden Leopard in the International Competition with Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash. Elsewhere in the International Competition, the Golden Leopard for Best Direction went to Abel Ferrara for Zeroes And Ones, while Qiu Jiongjiong’s A New Old Play won the Special Jury Prize. Best Actress went to Anastasiya Krasovskaya for Gerda, while Best Actor was shared by Mohamed Mellali and Valero Escolar from The Odd-Job Men. Special mentions went to Soul Of A Beast and Espiritu Sagrado.

Venice Completes Line-Up

Venice Film Festival finalized its line-up today with the addition of three titles. They are: Graziano Conversano’s 52-minute documentary Ricostruire insieme – Biennale Architettura, which looks at the themes, works and figures of the 2021 Biennale architecture festival; Nastia Korkia’s docGes – 2, a visual reflection upon the project by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop to renovate a former power plant in the centre of Moscow; and finally, Antonello Sarno’s Pietro Il Grande, a tribute to photojournalist Pietro Coccia, who died in 2018.

Golden Leopard goes to filmmaker from Indonesia for first time.

Indonesia’s Edwin has received Locarno Film Festival’s top honour, the Golden Leopard, for his latest feature Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s International Competition.

The Indonesia-Singapore-Germany co-production – adapted and based on a literary work by Eka Kurniawan – is being handled internationally by The Match Factory.

It is also the first time in Locarno’s 74-year history that the Golden Leopard has gone to a filmmaker from Indonesia.

Accepting the award on behalf of Edwin, who had already...

Given that, after its shuttered 2020 edition, the 74th Locarno Film Festival’s ident features a prowling, growling, resurgent leopard and the distinctly tumescent tagline “Cinema is Back” it’s somewhat ironic that the festival’s top prize should go to a film about erectile dysfunction.

In other ways, however, Indonesian director Edwin’s fabulously if nonsensically titled “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” is perhaps the ideal Golden Leopard winner, in what is a strange year for the world, and a strange year for the Swiss festival, which is finding its footing under the new artistic direction of Giona A. Nazzaro.

As an admixture of several distinctly populist genres that still, as Variety critic Jay Weissberg noted, uses impotence as a metaphor “to make a broader critique of a toxic culture that puts so much emphasis on virility,” the film is among the best exemplars of Nazzaro’s avowed...

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Indonesian director Edwin’s homage to and deconstruction of 1980s ultra-violent Asian action movies, has won the Golden Leopard for best film at the 2021 Locarno International Film Festival.

The feature, an adaptation of the novel by Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan, is a revenge tale involving a hired killer who uses violence to compensate for his public shame in being impotent and a female fighter who takes over his burden of vengeance. It stars Ajo Kawir[/link] and Ladya Cheryl. The Match Factory is handling international sales.

In a surprise announcement at the Locarno award ceremony,...

Indonesian film director Edwin, a festival darling whose films have been the trump card for Berlinale and Rotterdam, returns to the circuit with a new gem. “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,” which just had its world premiere in Locarno’s International Competition, is a genre-bending portrayal of an angry impotent young man stuck in the middle of the macho Indonesian Eighties.

As happened with many productions last year, the pandemic affected the film, which had to stop the shooting due to the lockdown. Lee Chatametikool, the film’s editor and an Apichatpong Weerasethakul regular, did all the editing online. “We had fun, even if the situation wasn’t generous in any way,” Edwin says.

Ajo Kawir (Marthino Lio) and Iteung (Ladya Cheryl), the lovebirds, are doing all sorts of odd jobs to survive their precarious existence. And on the way, a lot of combat happens. When fighting is not business,...

New Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who is the former head of the Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, is starting to put his stamp on the Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema with a lineup comprising comedies and genre films alongside more straightforward auteur cinema, driven by a desire to make the selection “more audience friendly,” as he puts it. Nazzaro spoke to Variety about some of the choices that reflect this new course. Excerpts.

Since taking the reins you’ve repeatedly talked about taking the fest in different directions. How is that reflected, now that the lineup is out?

My idea is that a festival can be quite highbrow and entertaining at the same time. That is why in this year’s lineup we have three comedies –– or sort of, it depends on your idea of humor –– we also have some “genre” films, and also some straightforward auteur films.

BenedictionThe lineup has been unveiled for the 2021 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, which will take place over 10 days (September 9-18) both in-person and physically in Toronto, and digitally across Canada. Wavelengths - FEATURESFutura (Pietro Marcello, Francesco Munzi, Alice Rohrwacher)The Girl and the Spider (Ramon Zürcher, Silvan Zürcher)Neptune Frost (Saul Williams, Anisia Uzeyman)A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)Ste. Anne (Rhayne Vermette)The Tsugua Diaries (Maureen Fazendeiro, Miguel Gomes)Wavelengths - SHORTSThe Capacity for Adequate Anger (Vika Kirchenbauer)Dear Chantal (Querida Chantal) (Nicolás Pereda)earthearthearth (Daïchi Saïto)Inner Outer Space (Laida Lertxundi)Polycephaly in D (Michael Robinson)“The red filter is withdrawn.” (Minjung Kim)Train Again (Peter Tscherkassky)Midnight Madness After Blue (Dirty Paradise) (Bertrand Mandico)Dashcam (Rob Savage)Saloum (Jean Luc Herbulot)Titane (Julia Ducournau)You Are Not My Mother (Kate Dolan)Zalava (Arsalan Amiri)TIFF DOCSAttica (Stanley Nelson)Beba (Rebeca Huntt)Becoming Cousteau...

The action-drama has also been selected for Toronto’s contemporary world cinema strand.

Screen can unveil the first trailer for Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, which will world premiere in the international competition at the Locarno Film Festival (August 4-14).

From Indonesian director Edwin, it stars Marthino Lio as a fighter driven to rage by his secret impotence. He has a chance to finally find happiness when he falls in love with a tough female fighter, played by Ladya Cheryl.

Edwin’s previous films include Blind Pig Who Wants To Fly, which premiered at Rotterdam in 2009, and Berlin...

The Locarno Film Festival, long known as a safe haven for indie cinema, is taking a turn into genre territory while remaining true to

its origins.

“People know what the mission is for Locarno,” says the fest’s new artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, referring to the prestige of the event — the 74th edition runs Aug. 4-14 — that is known worldwide as a festival of discovery.

But Nazzaro, an Italian film critic and former chief of the Venice Critics’ Week, now intends “to broaden the moral imagination of this mission,” as he puts it, by digging deeper into genre cinema, and “also into the [festival’s] relationship with the U.S. studios and what people would consider as [pure] entertainment.”

Significantly, this year’s Locarno opener is Netflix Original “Beckett,” a thriller toplining John David Washington as an American tourist who becomes the target of a political assassination while vacationing in Greece, and...

Leading arthouse sales agency and producer The Match Factory has acquired “Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash,” which will receive its world premiere in competition at the 74th Locarno Film Festival in August. The film is directed by Edwin, one of Indonesia’s best known and most well-respected directors.

The film centers on Ajo Kawir, a fighter who fears nothing, not even death. His raging urge to fight is driven by a secret — his impotence. When he crosses paths with a tough female fighter named Iteung, Ajo gets beaten black and blue, but also head over heels he falls in love. Will Ajo’s path lead him to a happy life with Iteung, and, eventually, his own peace of mind?

The film is based on the novel of the same name by the Booker longlisted author Eka Kurniawan.

The film is produced by Palari Films from Indonesia and coproducers...