TELLURIAN DRAMA

Tellurian Drama

Duration 26'23"

May 5th, 1923. The Dutch East Indies government celebrated the opening of a new radio station in West Java. It was called Radio Malabar. In March 2020, the local Indonesian government plans to reactivate the station as a historical site and tourist attraction. Tellurian Drama imagines what would have happened in between: the vital role of mountain in history; colonial ruins as an apparatus for geoengineering technology; and the invisible power of indigenous ancestral. Narrated based on the forgotten text written by a prominent pseudo-anthropologist Drs. Munarwan, Tellurian Drama problematizes the notion of decolonisation, geocentric technology, and historicity of communication.

Full film available in Asian region for streaming in VOD at Objectifs Film Library.

For public or institutional screenings in France, please contact Images de la culture, CNC.

Awards

First prize-winner at Busan International Video Art Festival 2022

Jury statement: "The prize-winner, Tellurian Drama(2020) by Riar Rizaldi, traces the records of a station called 'Radio Malabar' set up in Indonesia during the Dutch colonization, bringing to the surface complex issues of geoengineering, the ecological power of indigenous ancestors. The artist's attempt to document the historical record of the site, which is in danger of disappearing due to the recent government development project, through various archival materials, philosophical texts, and music, and the effort of the artist to visualize the mysterious energy and precarious fate of the site rather than flashy editing to grab attention should be appreciated."

Jury Special Mentions at Open Spaces - Rudnik Festival of Innovative Cinema 2022

Jury statement: "For managing to find a particular cinematic device to bring together interdependent processes, histories and subjectivities, as well as for its particular approach to the collective and the personal that develops an almost physical experience of colonisation, both past and present, the jury gives a Special Mention to “Tellurian Drama” by Riar Rizaldi."

Best Short Film at Berlin Revolution Film Festival 2022

Jury statement: "For uncovering a footnote of colonial history in order to unravel the possibility of a truly different relationship to our environment and leading us on an illuminating and sensorial journey to the other side of communication, we want to award the Best Short Film Award to Tellurian Drama by Riar Rizaldi. While searching and speculating about the actual and possible knowledge and insights that a visit to the remnants of the station Radio Malabar in West Java could transmit to us - as past, present and future researchers, inhabitants, activists, tourists, or even storytellers - the film brings us elsewhere in the end. A concert in (or for and with) the mountain happens unexpectedly and surprises our thinking on a different level of experience."

Honourable Mention in International Short Film Competition at DOK Leipzig 2021

Silver Screen Award - Best Southeast Asian Short Film at Singapore International Film Festival 2020

Jury statement: "This film returns to the complicated colonial past while reviving the traditional knowledge of indigenous people, mixing a lot of film technique, such as landscape cinematography. The film has a sense of epic grandeur."

Film stills