Assetto produttivo: Taiwan

One of the most beautiful places in the world, an island in the Pacific Ocean. Wild horses play on the beaches chasing and fighting each other for supremacy in the territory. Remains of slaves’ iron shackles remain on the pristine shore. They look old but in reality they could have just been abandoned. A 40-year-old Indonesian man with dark curls, Jeremy Kewuan walks barefoot on the beach, reading and reciting an ancient poem on his smartphone: “When I returned home, soon after being born to my mother, I saw a drop of blood. I am the protagonist of an adventure of which I know nothing: Who clings to pain and who does not? I went to look for answers to decipher the past. There is no present or future. I looked down and saw a book written in blood, a blood of blue color. At the beginning the poem is a hymn to the beauty of the island and the myths of the Maramba kings who reigned in a glorious past … but also to their way of treating the lower classes, whom they considered an inferior race. Jeremy then reflects on the present with a sarcastic comment: “Will there be a future for “Sumba” as long as its doctrine is kept alive?” Jeremy looks up. A passenger plane is flying over the beach and is about to land. A young woman, taken into custody by the nuns, is escorted to the airport. He gets into the car, sits in the back, hiding from the view of the others. The nun is driving and Jeremy is filming the whole thing, he’s sitting in the front like he’s a passenger. On the road monumental huts made of dried leaves form a canopy… People still live there in the traditional way. The car arrives at Rina’s village and everyone comes out, welcomed by a large and festive family. The nun approaches them, addressing the little girl’s father, and all the villagers: “Do not sell your children to strangers, as if they were merchandise… This is what they did to Rina, sick, mistreated and abused. She is just a child.” This is “Slave Island”.