Worldsales

Films Transit International CA
252 Gouin Boulevard East
Montreal, Quebec, CA H3L 1A8
Canada
Tel.: +1 514- 8443 358
Fax: +1 514- 8447 298
e-mail: moc.tisnartsmlif@ofni
Homepage: www.filmstransit.com

Production

Pieter van Huystee Film
Donker Curtiusstraat 125
1051 MC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel.: +31 20 421 06 06
Fax: +31 20 638 62 55
e-mail: ln.mlifhvp@ofni
Homepage: www.pvhfilm.nl

They Call Me Babu

Summary

An Indonesian nanny tells her remarkable life story, which plays out against the backdrop of World War II and her country's struggle for independence.
As a young woman, Alima flees to the city to avoid an arranged marriage. She finds a job as a nanny, or 'babu', for a Dutch family who are about to leave on a trip to Holland. As conflict descends across the globe, Alima returns to the Dutch colony, surviving Japanese occupation and her homeland's battle for liberation, before finding her own place in the world.
Sandra Beerends uses never-before-seen archive footage to construct Alima's partly fictionalised story, based on the lives of several Indonesian nannies of the era. The lyrical images of colonial society are hauntingly present, and Alima's alienation is palpable. Her gradual understanding of colonial society and her own position, exquisitely narrated, tells a universal story of women's empowerment.