'My Own Last Supper' Premieres at Shanghai, Eyes China
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- "My Own Last Supper" world premiered in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival, with the production team actively seeking Chinese distribution partners for a mainland theatrical release.
- Producer Lyza Anggraheni called the Indonesian film "pioneering" in its focus on Chinese-Indonesians and said it was "designed from the outset" to reach mainland Chinese audiences.
- Director Ismail Basbeth said the team debated whether to shoot in Indonesian or Chinese — and which dialect (Hakka or Hokkien) — calling language "a political tool" as well as culture; the festival Q&A oscillated between Chinese, English, and Bahasa Indonesia.
- The release push comes as Chinese diaspora stories gain momentum in China following the box-office success of "Dear You," though non-Chinese nationality filmmakers face the obstacle of no shared language.
- Cast member Chen, a third-generation Chinese-Indonesian, said the film represents Chinese people living in Indonesia; the article references "racial violence of the late 90s" — a nod to Indonesia's 1998 anti-Chinese riots.
- A throwaway line about a Chinese character registering his business under his Indonesian son-in-law's name reflects the forced assimilation and cultural bans Indonesian Chinese have historically faced; the Shanghai festival runs through June 21.
Why it matters: The film exposes a rare tension: a non-Chinese production seeking China's tightly controlled market while carrying a story about Indonesian Chinese who faced 1998 racial violence and decades of forced assimilation. For the producers, distribution success would validate a diaspora-cinema path that has rarely been open to non-Chinese nationality filmmakers, while a greenlight would implicitly approve a narrative that touches on politically charged history.
