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Short Film Review: Memoria (2016) by Kamila Andini

Memoria still

‘s “” is a short movie of 2016 that precedes “The Seen and The Unseen”. Intense and moving, “Memoria” is based on a true story, but Andini makes her protagonist Maria a spokeswoman for a nation and its abused women.

“Memoria” received an award for outstanding achievement at the 21st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in Busan, South Korea, and was nominated for best short film in the Indonesian Film Festival (FFI) in 2016.


Memoria” is screening at Berlin Film Festival

Set in present time East Timor, the film, as its title suggests, is a necessary reminder of the abominable and often unspoken violence and hardship endured by the women during the conflict the plagued the Timor Leste, started with their independence from Portugal in 1975 and during the dark years of the Indonesian occupation, concluded in 1999.

Moreover, the two decades of gender-based violence against women and children, rapes and routine domestic abuse have created an ingrained victim-blaming attitude that persist nowadays.

Raped and left pregnant, Maria is a survivor of the conflict; she has a daughter, Flora, who she loves dearly and wants to protect from the abuses she experienced in the past. She has also remarried a local man who is violent and absent. On her side, Flora is a modern girl, with a job and a boyfriend, but she is deeply unsettled by the mystery that surrounds her mother past and, consequently, her own identity. To make things more difficult, Maria’s fear of a predestined fate risks of compromising Flora’s future happiness as her mother refuses to go along with the wedding formalities.

Shot with non-professional actors, in a restrained, documentary-style simplicity, “Memoria” is a poignant and uncompromising outcry about the necessity and urgency of remembrance and Andini’s strong use of symbolism intertwines seamlessly with the uncluttered realism.

A floral feminine dress is the ripped innocence that Maria is trying to fix and cannot be fixed. She is anguished by the memories of her trauma and everything around her seems to whisper and torment her. In the heart-breaking opening scenes, she wanders in an empty house. Voices of women recounting painful tales of brutality seem to come from the abandoned walls. They are the collective memories of the survivors of a horror that must not be forgotten.


About the author

Adriana Rosati

On paper I am an Italian living in London, in reality I was born and bread in a popcorn bucket. I've loved cinema since I was a little child and I’ve always had a passion and interest for Asian (especially Japanese) pop culture, food and traditions, but on the cinema side, my big, first love is Hong Kong Cinema. Then - by a sort of osmosis - I have expanded my love and appreciation to the cinematography of other Asian countries. I like action, heroic bloodshed, wu-xia, Shaw Bros (even if it’s not my specialty), Anime, and also more auteur-ish movies. Anything that is good, really, but I am allergic to rom-com (unless it’s a HK rom-com, possibly featuring Andy Lau in his 20s)"

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