History is rarely neutral. This programme’s films challenge the authority of official narratives, turning to fragments, personal archives, and memory to reconstruct a past that demands questioning. From landscapes reshaped by ecological upheaval to institutions that claim to present infallible accounts, these works expose the instability beneath historical certainty.

Ocean Mud Pickle (2024, Paribartana Mohanty)

Director: Paribartana Mohanty
Runtime: 35 mins
Country: India
Language: Odia with English subtitles
Rating: PG

Synopsis

Once a village on the Bay of Bengal, Satabhaya has been repeatedly submerged by cyclones, erosion, and rising sea levels, transforming it into a site of memory and displacement. Drawing on amateur archives, personal testimonies, and maps reimagined through a Daskathia folk song and performance, Ocean Mud Pickle traces the shifting ecologies of Satabhaya and speculates on its uncertain future, where human and non-human worlds converge amid the climate crisis.

FIKSI (2016, Otty Widasari)

Director: Otty Widasari
Runtime: 12 mins
Country: Indonesia
Language:
Rating: PG

Synopsis

A ship, caught on the crest of a wave. Labourers haul baskets of stones up a hill. Suited politicians gather in Parliament. Composed of images of dioramas from Indonesia’s National Museum, FIKSI offers a subjective presentation of historical narratives. Through overlapping narrations that blur rather than clarify, the film destabilises the illusion of historical transparency.

This screening is part of the programme Prasasti / Inscriptions: Unearthing Intertwined Legacies. For more screenings of this programme. Please click here. 

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