Indonesia Calling

Joris Ivens / Australia / 1946 / Czech Premiere / 22 min.

synopsis

The story of the ships that never set sail is the story of a war that never began. After Japan’s surrender, the Netherlands prepares to return to its colony, but the Indonesians declare independence. Ivens lets the power of their voices resonate on Australian soil, to which the colonial government has relocated. A compilation of black-and-white footage from exile celebrations, political rallies, and events at the docks – interspersed with a minimalist graphic depiction of three centuries of colonization – traces how a boycott of Dutch ships carrying ammunition, intended to suppress the Indonesian struggle for independence, spreads among Australian dockworkers and Indian, Malay, and Chinese sailors. Staged reenactments of key events are performed by the protagonists themselves.

As film commissioner for the Dutch East Indies, Ivens was supposed to document the planned return of the Dutch to the colony, but he soon switched sides to support the Indonesian revolution. The film, which he shot secretly with the support of Australian labour unions, bolstered the independence movement among Indonesians in Australia and on besieged Java, where it was smuggled in despite the Dutch blockade. As a testament to Australian solidarity and working-class support, the film paved the way for Australia to assume the role of mediator, a duty entrusted to it by the Indonesians during the 1949 negotiations on the transfer of sovereignty.

biography

Joris Ivens (1898–1989) was a Dutch political documentary filmmaker and chronicler of workers’ and liberation struggles who used film as both an argument and a weapon. Ji.hlava IDFF paid tribute to him in 2015, screening his film The First Years (1949), a celebration of postwar people’s democracies shot also in Prague with the same crew as Indonesia Calling, though this time commissioned by the authorities. He began his career with the visual poems The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929) and concluded it with the poetic essay A Tale of the Wind (1988), in which he waits in the Chinese desert for the wind to rise.