The Exiles

During the 1965 mass killings and political upheavals to eliminate the Indonesian Communist Party, the new government banned hundreds of Indonesian scholars in the Soviet Union and China from their homeland, forcing them to exile across European countries without status. Shifting between the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, and Indonesia, this documentary follows those whose lives were uprooted decades ago as they recall the fate-changing events and strive to find the closest way to feel home. It’s a story of life built over trauma, the right to reclaim national identity, and a quest to define home through a collective of heartbreaking memories preserved by a group of cast-out intellectuals.