On 19 February 1949, a group of Dutch soldiers massacred a number of health workers and wounded Indonesian soldiers in Peniwen village, Malang, East Java. To commemorate this event, the Peniwen Affair monument was established in 1983, as a reminder of one of East Java’s ‘heroic’ moment during the Indonesian Revolution. The case even gain international recognition when the Dutch court decided to provide compensation for the widowed victims of Peniwen in 2016. 

Eling-eling Peniwen is a reflection of Indonesia’s problematic construction of heroes through conversations with those who are related to the monument. Their stories depicted how such construction excludes other narratives and practices of remembering; and overrides the fact that those who are commemorated are still victims of Dutch violence.

Duration film

40 minutes. 

Format event

The film screening will take place at the KITLV in Leiden. After the film screening there will be an online Q&A with the two film makers Gedhe Ashari  & Moch Nizam Alfahmi.

Film makers

Gedhe Ashari is an active student of History Education at Universitas Negeri Malang, as well as a researcher and documentary filmmaker who uses film as a medium to explore themes of history, ethnography, and the environment. His works highlight issues of injustice within the Indonesian context. His current project continues this line of inquiry, focusing on historiography and documentary film to examine ecological injustice experienced by non-human actors, such as the Javan tiger, a species that vanished four decades ago.

Moch Nizam Alfahmi is a researcher and documentary filmmaker. His work deals with visual history such as historical mapping and historical films that focus on memory and environmental landscapes. His work also highlights issues of post-colonial violence in Indonesia. He is currently participating in research on the changing landscape of Buru Island (Maluku Islands) through countermapping.

Discussants

Esther Captain is a Professor of Intergenerational Impact of Slavery and Colonialism at Utrecht University and a senior researcher at KITLV. Her work deals with the long-term impact of colonialism and slavery in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean islands and South Africa, with a specific focus on how experiences and memories of these systems have been transmitted from generation to generation.

Arnoud Arps is an Assistant Professor of Extended Cinema, Film Heritage and Memory at the Media Studies department and Academic Staff Member at the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. His research focuses on the position of media and popular culture (with a special interest in film and literature) within the fields of media studies, cultural memory studies, and postcolonial studies with the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia as my main research topics. His research focuses on the position of media and popular culture (with a special interest in film and literature) within the fields of media studies, cultural memory studies, and postcolonial studies with the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia as my main research topics.

Moderator

Grace Leksana is an Assistant Professor in Indonesian history in the Cultural History section of Utrecht University. Trained as an Indonesian social historian with interdisciplinary background, her works involved memory studies, (epistemic) violence & genocide, histories of the Left, decolonization, and specific approach of micro history.

Film producer

Produced by Cinecronic Film in collaboration with Universitas Negeri Malang.

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