Thrilled to announce that Amar Haikal’s My Plastic Mother has won the Best International Short Film award at the 35th Flickerfest International Short Film Festival in Australia. This award makes it eligible for the Academy Awards in 2027.

Every year since 2008, one or two short films from our catalogue have had the great fortune to win an international festival qualifying for the Academy Awards.
Amar Haikal joins an unforgettable list of magnificent filmmakers from Mailuki Films such as Álex Lora, Aliaksei Paluyan, Bogdan Muresanu, Việt Vũ, Lorin Terezi….

My Plastic Mother, aka Anak Macan, is an Indonesian production premiered at Leeds International Film Festival, UK; Beirut International Short Film Festival, Libano; and Singapore International Film Festival.All are events recognized by The Academy.

Synopsis:

Eki, living by the landfill, searches for a memento to honor his late mother. Battling the relentless rain, landslides, and looming threats from scavengers and machinery, he fears her memory could be lost beneath the waste forever.

Statement Director:

I grew up without my mother. As a kid, I did not really consider it to be a problem until I saw the relationship my classmates had with their mothers. For example, family photo days in elementary school were always a terror; the other kids brought in photographs of their whole family, and all mine had was just a photo of me and my father. It made me feel incomplete. I would then end up crafting well-thought-out lies to my friends about my mother working overseas. I slowly became a very troublesome and hurtful kid, to the point of expulsion in the sixth grade. As I reflect, the frustration and confusion that I kept to myself were the one that led me to hurt others around me.

With this film, I want to encapsulate those years of my childhood. It is a story about longing and the desire we all have to feel complete, interpreted through the pure desire of a child. The protagonist is a naughty, harsh boy that secretly keeps a lot of pain inside – which is also a trait most male don’t get the chance to outgrow.

In 2021, as I was shooting a documentary project in the landfill of Bantar Gebang, a huge landslide happened. Burying hundreds of old public graveyards with plastic waste sent from the capital, Jakarta. The locals refer to the kids who play in the landfill as “Anak Macan” or “Tiger Boy” due to their reckless nature. But I see it as an ironic relation to the mascot of Jakarta, the Kemayoran Tiger. All the characters in this film are played by non-professional actors, they are the kids who live in Bantar Gebang. This story is theirs as much as it is mine.

The film stars the incomparable Muhammad Alfat Apriansyah in the lead role.

Stay tuned, in a few days we will announce new successes for Mailuki Films’ films.

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