Bersama Membangun Negeri (Always Until Victory!)
2022 · 12m · Indonesia
Directed by Deo Mahameru
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, provocative
During an Indonesian election year, a legislative council candidate films a charitable campaign video in a Jakarta slum and grows increasingly desperate as the elderly widow she's gifting a house refuses to cry on cue.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most election satires genuflect to their own righteousness, but Mahameru finds comedy in the candidate's desperation itself—watching someone's performative compassion slowly curdle into frantic, absurd coercion is the kind of premise that makes you uncomfortable and then can't stop laughing.
The film's restraint is its argument: by refusing to let the widow become a prop or redemption arc, Mahameru positions himself in a lineage of Indonesian cinema that interrogates state power through the domestic, with editing that holds each awkward silence just long enough to implicate the viewer.
The entire film rests on the widow's immovable face—that single performance choice of refusal becomes the spine that transforms what could have been a preachy message film into something genuinely unsettling and funny.
Reviews
A powerful satirical commentary on the nation's political landscape, executed intelligently through witty staging and over-the-top performances.
Komedi satir untuk para calon legislatif — a satirical comedy aimed at legislative candidates, raising awareness about the exploitative theatrics of campaign storytelling.
Festivals
- Jakarta Film Week 2022
- Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2022
- Singapore International Film Festival 2022
- Piala Maya 2022
- Monthly Film Festival 2022