
It is quite an interesting choice for the largest film festival in the Netherlands to close with a film that explicitly denounces the violence of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, but one can always expect interesting choices from the International Film Festival Rotterdam. This year’s closing film, Mouly Surya’s “This City Is a Battlefield,” takes place in Jakarta in 1946 as Nationalist leaders have declared independence but the city remains under Dutch control, with tensions escalating to bloody, violent clashes. Speaking with Variety ahead of the festival gala, Surya says she...