Photocopier

Debut filmmaker Wregas Bhanuteja comes up with a powerful tech-thriller that shines in almost every department. I'm blown away by how he interweaves multiple elements within the plot, embeds them within Indonesia's socio-economic layers, telling a universally relatable tale. The characterization of the lead(s) is also worth a mention. At its core, Photocopier is a mystery - one that seeks to unearth events that happened during a night of drunken partying hosted by a theater group's playwright. The protagonist Sur (a magnificent Shenina Cinnamon) is the one who gets the short end of the stick. Some drunk selfies posted on her social media results in a loss of a scholarship, but her worries go far beyond that. As she digs deeper into what went down, she realizes that there's more to it than she initially thought.

While this mystery is solidly put together with a good number of twists and turns, Photocopier also revolves around the theme of abuse - especially of privacy, alongside physical and mental health. The film manages to inventively touch upon several aspects of human life even when it's busy keeping us on edge. These include friendship, breach of trust, betrayal, conservatism, fetishes, aesthetics, performing arts, and even an epidemic. The camera constantly follows the protagonist as she hustles her way through the streets of Jakarta in search of answers. The climactic finale is the icing on the cake, proving to be the most wildly effective cinematic ending for this particular story. And it also reinstates the significance of the film's title while at it!