Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Babi buta yang ingin terbang) Movie Poster

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Babi buta yang ingin terbang)

Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly (Babi buta yang ingin terbang)

Filmmaker Edwin casts a darkly satirical eye on the uneasy relationship between Muslims and the Chinese in Indonesia in this episodic black comedy. Pork is a staple of the Chinese diet, but it's forbidden to Muslims, and as a blind pig becomes a recurring motif in this film, it becomes a symbol of the cultural gulf between these two sides of contemporary Indonesia. Linda (Ladya Cheryll) is a young woman of Chinese heritage whose father is a dentist who lost his sight while trying to turn his eyes round with a scalpel, while her mother converted to Christianity after gaining some small fame as a volleyball player. Linda's good friend Cahyono (Carlo Genta) has grown so tired of anti-Chinese prejudice that he's taken to telling people he's actually from Japan, while her father still dreams of becoming a Muslim so he can marry a second wife. As these characters try to make sense of their place in Indonesian society, a gay couple wrestles with unusual fantasies, a badminton player goes on a dumpling-making spree, I Just Called to Say I Love You becomes suddenly unavoidable, and a documentary on the 1998 Jakarta riots is in heavy rotation on state television. Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly was an official selection at the 2009 BFI London Film Festival; the short (66 minutes) feature was accompanied by a new short subject by Edwin.