APM - Asian Project Market

5-8 OCTOBER 2024
ASIAN PROJECT MARKET Asian Project Market

Completed Projects

Back to list Tale of the Land

Director’s Profile: Loeloe Hendra is a bachelor of film and television at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta and pursued a master′s degree at the same campus. He has directed several short films, including Onomastika (2014), which competed in Generation Kplus at Berlin International Film Festival 2015, and at other festivals. In 2014, he participated in the Script & Pitch Feature Film Project at Southeast Asian Film Lab, Singapore.
His short film, Lost Wonders (2015), competed at Singapore International Film Festival 2016. He is currently developing his first fiction feature film, Tale of the Land, which was selected for Feature Lab 360 Torino Film Lab 2017, HAF Project Market Hong Kong International Film Festival 2018, and Asian Project Market 2021.

Synopsis: BORNEO, INDONESIA - A land conflict results in trauma for May (15), a young female Dayak (an indigenous group inhabiting parts of Borneo). May is haunted after witnessing the death of her parents on their land. Abandoned, she leaves her homeland as it becomes a mining area. May tries to get her life back together by moving into a floating house built on the water with her grandfather, Tuha (70).
May makes friends with Yus (17), a swamp buffalo herder, who lives near the water. Everyone believes that May is cursed because whenever she steps onto solid ground, she faints.
As Dayak, whose way of life is cultivating the land, Tuha and May struggle to survive on the water by fish farming and weaving. They try their best to make a living and overcome their past.
May’s encounter with Lawa (17), who is trying to get a security job at a company, brings new hope of the possibility of her getting back to the land. But an incident that happens to Tuha comes as a warning that the land is still dangerous. A distant relative, Abang (35), seems to be trying to separate May and Tuha. The notion of making peace with the past and improving their lives seems out of reach.
After Tuha’s death, May is faced with the biggest choice of her life. To return to the land or to continue living on the water, just as Tuha wished before his death.