Ariel Victor Arthanto

Monica scours archive material for answers to the question of how queer life in Berlin and the wish to be accepted by their Christian-Indonesian parents can be reconciled.

ANANDA (in French: La Javanaise) is a fictional story, based on historical figures and events, of a young girls journey to find freedom and return home. In 1893, free-spirit ANANDA (13), lives happily with her little sister Tika (8) and their grandmother EMBAH (53) in a seaside village in Java. Yearning to be a shaman like Embah, Ananda enters the forbidden jungle and encounters a fierce TIGER. Suddenly, the girl and the tiger are both captured by traffickers. Ananda is sent to Paris, France where she works as a model and servant for a bohemian painter who abuses her. On a quest to return home, Ananda escapes, disguises herself as a boy, and encounters the Tiger again at the Cirque Fernando, where Ananda finds a new family among the misfits of the circus.

At a fancy flower spa, Sam prepares for their blooming and bodily transformation. Their mother, however, isn’t quite ready to let go. On their final day together, between petal pampering, quiet conversations, and echoes of childhood, tension and fear rise, but something tender begins to take root.

ANANDA (in French: La Javanaise) is a fictional story, based on historical figures and events, of a young girls journey to find freedom and return home. In 1893, free-spirit ANANDA (13), lives happily with her little sister Tika (8) and their grandmother EMBAH (53) in a seaside village in Java. Yearning to be a shaman like Embah, Ananda enters the forbidden jungle and encounters a fierce TIGER. Suddenly, the girl and the tiger are both captured by traffickers. Ananda is sent to Paris, France where she works as a model and servant for a bohemian painter who abuses her. On a quest to return home, Ananda escapes, disguises herself as a boy, and encounters the Tiger again at the Cirque Fernando, where Ananda finds a new family among the misfits of the circus.

At a fancy flower spa, Sam prepares for their blooming and bodily transformation. Their mother, however, isn’t quite ready to let go. On their final day together, between petal pampering, quiet conversations, and echoes of childhood, tension and fear rise, but something tender begins to take root.

At a fancy flower spa, Sam prepares for their blooming and bodily transformation. Their mother, however, isn’t quite ready to let go. On their final day together, between petal pampering, quiet conversations, and echoes of childhood, tension and fear rise, but something tender begins to take root.