We interviewed Makbul Mubarak, director of Autobiography, presented in Orizzonti section at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.
Following the world premiere of his film at Venice Film Festival 2022, Autobiography became the fourth feature film from Indonesia to be selected in Orizzonti section and marks the first time for a debutant director.
Director’s statement:
Throughout three decades of Indonesia’s military dictatorship from the mid-Sixties
to the late-Nineties, my father worked as a civil servant under the regime. I grew up discerning his loyalty to the state as something that seemed inherent to my family’s life. I learnt, by observing him, that loyalty is what makes a person honorable: a principle that I considered to be very true and, at that point in time, satisfyingly rewarding. However, as I grew up, a question began to haunt me: is loyalty still honorable if and when it is pledged to something monstrous? If we annul our loyalty to them, would this be considered a betrayal? Or a fight for justice? And therefore, would this make us a good or a bad person? Autobiography is an emotional inquiry into my adolescence, my country, and to the values that I was raised with—which are still being taught everywhere even to this day, twenty-four years after the collapse of the dictatorship. In a society with such a repressed history, what does it take to be able to call oneself ‘a good person’?
We were excited to sit down with Makbul for a chat about his debut feature. Check out the interview below.
