Makbul Mubarak Wins IEFTA Prize at Torino Filmlab Meeting Event 2023

Makbul Mubarak (Indonesia)

WRITER & DIRECTOR

Makbul Mubarak is an Indonesian filmmaker based in Jakarta. He graduated from the film department of Korea National University of Arts. He directed several short films before embarking on his first feature film, Autobiography, produced by Jakarta-based company KawanKawan Media in co-production with France, Singapore, Poland, Germany, the Philippines and Qatar. Autobiography premiered in Venice Orizzonti 2022 where it received the FIPRESCI Prize. Since then, Autobiography has travelled to numerous festivals such as Toronto, BFI London, Marrakech, New Directors/New Films, Busan, Karlovy Vary, etc and received 19 awards worldwide, including awards for best film at festivals such as Tokyo FILMeX, Adelaide FF, Singapore FF and others, well as a prize for best first feature film at Stockholm Film Festival 2022. He is currently developing his second feature Watch it Burn, at TFL ScriptLab and presented at Busan FF’s Asian Project Market 2023.

Synopsis: Alma (35) is recently divorced from Rafa, her ex-husband who cheated on her. Healing from a painful betrayal, Alma is increasingly anxious. One day when Alma drives her son home from school, a stranger stops her car, asking her to help bring a man to hospital. Suspicious, Alma denies the request and drives away.Days later, Alma is summoned by the police. Due to her negligence and refusal to help, the man died. Alma is required by Paulina (the dead man’s daughter) to pay blood money. Alma refuses, but Rafa secretly pays her debt. When Alma finds out, she looks for Paulina to ask for the truth. The situation escalates as the two women are very suspicious of each other. When someone sets fire to her house, Alma is sure that Paulina is behind it and reports her to the police. When the actual reason for the fire is discovered, Alma’s world turns upside down. Once a victim, now a perpetrator. Confession is not an option. She doesn’t want Rafa to see her life crumble after divorcing him. Alma explores the haunting lengths to which humans can go to prove that they are right. Alma decides that possibly the only way to prove herself right, is by proving everybody else wrong.