Ariani Darmawan Returns After a Decade With 'Jani Be Good'

Indonesian filmmaker Ariani Darmawan waited more than ten years between directing projects. Her first feature, "Jani Be Good," now screens in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Asian Future competition, and Palari Films opens it in Indonesian cinemas on Dec. 10.

"I stopped making films for over 10 years because I was having a kid and looking after my family, so getting back to it was all I really wanted," Darmawan told Variety.

The film spans four December days before Christmas. Thirteen-year-old Jani overhears a fight between her 18-year-old sister Julia and their mother Winnie. Julia leaves home. Winnie, a single mother who works as an accountant and fills fruit hamper orders on the side, grows short-tempered with the daughter who stayed. Jani, secretly trading messages with Julia, leans on her grandmother Oma, who makes spring rolls to sell so she can save for her own cremation. The household is Chinese-Catholic.

What does the film say about silence?

Darmawan co-wrote the screenplay with Cyntha Hariadi. The four leads are Chempa Puteri, Sigi Wimala, Tutie Kirana and Hyori Mika. Taurisia produced for Palari Films, the Jakarta company she runs with Muhammad Zaidy, founded in 2016.

Taurisia called Darmawan in 2022 with an offer to direct a family drama. Darmawan says she only recently noticed how much unseen care work family life demands. Becoming a mother changed how she sees her own.

"As a kid, I watched her keep the family running, rummaging through things at her desk, making phone calls, cooking dinner, but I never wondered how she felt," she said. "It took having my own family, in my late thirties, to understand how exhausting and all-consuming it is."

Darmawan grew up as the youngest, treated as the one who understood least. "You could say you can only see the constellation when you're standing outside it," she says.

In many Asian families, she argues, disagreements are met with silence to avoid hurting a relative. "But that ends up hurting us even more," she said. "If it keeps getting held in and never confronted, it stays a wound and gets passed down to the next generation."

The film shows this pattern visually: the women protect themselves behind a gate that stays shut and windows fitted with bars. Winnie responds to Julia's departure by working harder, her care arriving as instructions and corrections. "I didn't want Winnie to be a villain, because she isn't one," Darmawan said. "I think I understand Winnie because I'm a mother too."

How was it made?

The production shot in 13 days — a first for Palari — in a house in Bandung. Darmawan, Hariadi and the four leads read the script in that house two months before cameras rolled, rehearsed in Jakarta, then returned with cinematographer Teoh Gay Hian and production designer Suherina for the final two weeks of prep. None of the actors knew each other, so casting included chemistry tests built around Puteri.

"I sat in on the whole process, but when it comes to the final call, I like to leave it to the director," Taurisia said. "She's the chef, and she knows her ingredients best."

Darmawan's short "Sugiharti Halim" competed at Clermont-Ferrand and screened at Rotterdam and Busan; "Silenced" also played Rotterdam.

What does this change for Indonesian film?

Palari won Locarno's Golden Leopard in 2021 with "Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash." Its slate ranges from "Posesif" and "Aruna and Her Palate" to Netflix's "Borderless Fog" and this year's "Sleep No More."

Taurisia points to distribution as the structural problem: Indonesia has exhibitors but no distributors reaching across the archipelago. This year Palari launched Kelas Komunitas Palari, a workshop series teaching film communities to stage their own screenings. "Jani Be Good" is the program's first test.

"Many directors struggle to make a second film after their first, and this gap in the film value chain doesn't help," Taurisia said. "How can we build film careers, let alone sustainable ones?"

Palari's upcoming slate includes Edwin's "Menari dengan Bayangan," Aditya Ahmad's "Goldfish," which won three awards at the Busan Asian Project Market, and Khozy Rizal's "I Wanna Dance With Myself." Darmawan, who also founded the library and bookstore Kineruku, intends to keep directing. "As for themes, I'm open to anything, as long as it has sad and sweet relationships between people," she said. "That's where things get complicated and interesting."