Position Among the Stars

Cinema vérité filmmaker Leonard Retel Helmrich has followed the Sjamsuddin family for 12 years, capturing the changes in their lives and the world around them. This film, the final in a trilogy, is also a stand-alone work. The family, comprising Christian grandmother Rumidjah, her Muslim sons Bakti and Dwi, their wives and her orphaned granddaughter Tari, live in the slums of Jakarta. Tari is about to graduate - a dream long cherished by her impoverished family - but she's currently showing more interest in boys than in books. Helmrich's closeness to the family provides us with a fly-on-the-wall portrait of the three generations. His innovative camera technique with close-ups of creatures great and small - as well as long, uninterrupted shots of Bakti's exuberant nephew flying through the alleyways - is both poetic and exquisitely real. Winner of major prizes at both Sundance and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Helmrich's film captures modern Indonesia in all its complexity: shopping malls and rice paddies, mosques and cathedrals, privilege and poverty.

Position Among The Stars will be screening with English subtitles.

• Awards Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival; Best Documentary, IDFA