History, Memory, Commemoration: Sulawesi

Sulawesi is the third film in the series entitled History, Memory, Commemoration, a project that explores how a shared colonial history is remembered, experienced and passed on to future generations.

In December 1946, Captain Raymond Westerling and his Special Forces launched a violent campaign in South Sulawesi to suppress the Indonesian independence movement. Thousands were killed in what became one of the most brutal episodes of the colonial war. How does the memory of this violence persist today? And how do centuries-old local cultures endure despite such powerful external forces?

Sulawesi is the third film in the series, following after Java and Aceh. The project, realised in association with De Balie and created by artists Iswanto Hartono and Hans van Houwelingen and researcher Mirwan Andan, will result in eight films, each recorded at specific locations in Indonesia and the Netherlands that relate to a shared colonial history. This film was recorded in Sulawesi and shows how the impact of the violence of 1946/47 still resonates in the present day, while also revealing how local cultures have preserved their authenticity across generations.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers.

<strong>More about History, Memory, Commemoration</strong>

The film series dispenses with a one-sided view and shows the wide variety of meanings of one shared colonial history. The leading motif is the Van Heutsz monument, renamed the Indië-Nederland monument, in Amsterdam and the Van Heutsz monument in Jakarta, demolished in 1953. This film series is not only a journey through time, but also an invitation to recognise and reconsider the diversity of our shared history.