How Kamila Andini is reworking the script of Indonesia’s male-dominated film industry
The daughter of Garin Nugroho, one of the nation’s most respected filmmakers, is not only putting Balinese movies on the map – she’s breaking down conservative stereotypes about the ‘ideal woman’ along the way
Kamila Andini never imagined she would become a filmmaker. “Never,” she emphasises.
“Even though I was born in a filmmaker’s house and, seeing who my father is [Garin Nugroho, one of the nation’s most well-respected filmmakers], there was always poetry, storytelling, nature, art and culture in the atmosphere of our house – but when I was a kid, I never thought about it.”
Now in Bali running workshops and conducting research, Andini says she found it was her calling and has now released her second feature film Sekala Niskala (The Seen and Unseen). Yet after making her first film, The Mirror Never Lies, she considered giving it all up to take care of her family, a typical path for Indonesian women who are often deeply scrutinised for how they navigate their work-life balance.
She says after the birth of her first daughter, she felt so attached to her that she considered ending her career. “I thought, maybe this is all I will do now,” Andini says. “I always wanted to be a mother. But after eight months, I missed being in the director’s chair.”
Born in Jakarta in 1986, Andini grew up in an especially creative household. She had many creative hobbies as a child – dancing, painting, music and photography – and became interested in film only when her friends assumed she could help them make one.
