Indonesian Filmmaker Kamila Andini Talks Berlinale Prize-Winner ‘Before, Now & Then’ (‘Nana’)

With a string of festival prizes for her four films, 36-year old writer-director Kamila Andini has established herself as a key Indonesian filmmaker to look out for. Her repertoire is made up of intimately-carved narratives driven by strong female characters, providing an expression and voice for their inner lives amid harsh sociopolitical circumstances.

Nana (also known by its English title, Before, Now & Then) had its world premiere at the Berlinale this year, where Indonesian actress Laura Basuki won the Best Supporting Performance prize. The film also picked up the Jury Award at the Brussels International Film Festival. Nana is Andini’s fourth feature and she has previously helmed The Mirror Never Lies (2011), The Seen and Unseen (2017) and Yuni (2021). Last year, Yuni won the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Recently, Andini’s days have been packed, all thanks to Nana’s success at the Berlinale and the film’s global release schedule. She is currently in production for a yet-to-be-announced film project and also developing a theater show. “I never had this much opportunity to release a film in many different countries,” she says, about Nana. “What I talked about in the film was very specific and also very subtle so it has amazed me how people can connect with and relate to it.”

Set in the 1960s against the backdrop of post-war West Java, Nana tells the story of a woman (named Nana) grappling for meaning in the wake of her husband’s disappearance. “Because it’s based on a real story, I think it’s important for her family and relatives to have her name as the Indonesian title,” shares Andini, on the film’s two different titles. “But creatively, I also need a title that can represent the ideas of the narrative.”

Pandemic restrictions proved to be a major challenge for Nana’s production. Andini said that Covid-19 restrictions affected her entire filmmaking process, from how she wrote the script, to the locations she chose to film in, and even how the various scenes were framed. “I had to design everything to be able to shoot in that time,” Andini says. She also had to be particularly cautious about forming a safe “bubble” when bringing a large film crew together in more rural locations.

For Andini, the film’s representations of Sundanese culture are personal for her. The maternal side of Andini’s extended family is Sundanese and Nana marks an intimate journey into her family’s culture and heritage. The film is adapted from a chapter in the Indonesian novel Jais Darga Namaku by Ahda Imran. “When I read the story, I remembered my grandma and I felt like it’s a story of my family too,” Andini says. “Most of my movies, I always use a certain culture and local language but I’ve never made a movie from my roots and own culture. So I thought this would be the time for me to talk about Sundanese [culture] and where I’m actually from.”

While Andini had done additional research into Sundanese culture and language, she depended mostly on her memories of her grandmother to put together the sights, sounds and textures of Nana. Intergenerational memory is also a form of knowledge, a wellspring that Andini returns to again and again. “I trust my intuitions actually, more than research,” Andini says. “[For example,] the flower arrangement was something that is based on my memory, and textures like bamboo was something I felt like I needed to have, as well as the traditional songs.”

Other aspects that Andini devoted much effort into representing and portraying well are Nana’s inner turmoil, emotions and perspectives. “Like my mother, my grandma, my sister and I, it’s always nice to portray a woman as a woman. They are not black and white, we can talk about any kind of layers and I don’t need to hide anything,” Andini adds. “That’s what interested me in making Nana.”