Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Babi buta yang ingin terbang)

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Drama

Filmmaker Edwin casts a darkly satirical eye on the uneasy relationship between Muslims and the Chinese in Indonesia in this episodic black comedy.

Pork is a staple of the Chinese diet, but it's forbidden to Muslims, and as a blind pig becomes a recurring motif in this film, it becomes a symbol of the cultural gulf between these two sides of contemporary Indonesia.

Linda (Ladya Cheryll) is a young woman of Chinese heritage whose father is a dentist who lost his sight while trying to turn his eyes round with a scalpel, while her mother converted to Christianity after gaining some small fame as a volleyball player.

Linda's good friend Cahyono (Carlo Genta) has grown so tired of anti-Chinese prejudice that he's taken to telling people he's actually from Japan, while her father still dreams of becoming a Muslim so he can marry a second wife.

As these characters try to make sense of their place in Indonesian society, a gay couple wrestles with unusual fantasies, a badminton player goes on a dumpling-making spree, I Just Called to Say I Love You becomes suddenly unavoidable, and a documentary on the 1998 Jakarta riots is in heavy rotation on state television.

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly was an official selection at the 2009 BFI London Film Festival; the short (66 minutes) feature was accompanied by a new short subject by Edwin.