Film Screening and Discussion
Tropic Fever

Screening of the feature-length film from Indonesian directors that appropriates documents from the archives of various Dutch institutions.

03.12.2022
2 PM
GoetheHaus Jakarta

Registration

The semi-autobiographical account of a European plantation manager on Sumatra during Dutch colonial rule becomes a starting point for reflections on how colonialism operates. Utilizing archival documents from 1890 to 1930, Tropic Fever describes the tobacco and rubber industries, the construction of skin colour as a social category, and the "tropic fever” that was used as a pretext for violence during the colonial period.

Very few films have made use of the extensive material shot by the colonists in the Dutch East Indies. Tropic Fever is the film from Indonesian directors that appropriates that stock, using photos, documentary silent film footage, home movies, and feature films as well as development plans from the archives of various Dutch institutions. The film demonstrates how forests and swamps turned into rigidly organised agricultural areas and how the plantation became the foundation of the colonial project as such.

After the film screening, there will be discussion with the directors of Tropic Fever: Mahardika Yudha, Perdana “Pepe” Rooswaldy, Robin Hartanto Honggare, moderated by Anggraeni Widhiasih.