Indonesian auteur Kamila Andini is gearing up for what she calls “the hardest story I’ve ever created” with “ Four Seasons in Java ,” a magical realist drama that confronts the dark underbelly of progress and power in contemporary Indonesia.

The film, now in post-production and at the Venice Gap-Financing Market , follows Pertiwi, a woman who returns to her village after more than a decade in prison for killing a young man while defending herself from attempted rape. Her homecoming coincides with the arrival of electricity to the remote community, setting up what Andini describes as a collision between modernity and personal trauma that she sees “repeating in our daily life.”

“Development cost in our country is very expensive,” Andini explains. “We pay it with our body, tears, bloo

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