Indonesian filmmaker Angga Dwimas Sasongko is making a return to the director’s chair with “Queen of Malacca,” a crime-action thriller that melds Southeast Asian mysticism with gritty underworld violence. The venture was unveiled on the Cannes market.
Sasongko heads Indonesian studio Visinema. After spending two years targeted on main Visinema’s company transformation and shepherding “Jumbo” — Indonesia’s most profitable animated movie up to now — Sasongko is able to helm what he describes as his most bold motion venture but.
“It’s time to direct a movie that ignites the deepest instincts I’ve as a storyteller,” Sasongko stated. “Now that Visinema’s transformation is effectively underway and ‘Jumbo’ has exceeded its targets, I’m returning to the director’s chair with one thing extra bold: an motion movie that’s visceral, emotional, and rooted within the grit of native tales.”
The movie goals to mix conventional Southeast Asian mythology with up to date crime narratives. “I wish to create a world constructing that’s very routine to Southeast Asian tradition, however by no means been touched earlier than in Southeast Asian cinema,” Sasongko stated. “The right way to mix the darkish facet of crime and underworld inside Malacca Strait… It’s probably the most strategic areas for buying and selling, for geopolitics, however not solely on the floor, but additionally within the underworld.”
The Malacca Strait, an important delivery lane between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, serves as each the geographic and thematic middle of the movie, which is able to discover its function in human trafficking, drug commerce and weapons smuggling.
Sasongko plans to reimagine conventional Malaysian warrior myths for up to date audiences. He referenced the legendary warriors of the Sultan of Malacca, whose sagas are standard all through Indonesia and Malaysia. The movie will even incorporate parts of Southeast Asian energy politics, together with using shamanic practices and superstitions amongst political elites.
“Folks with energy have a tendency to make use of superstitious parts into their energy recreation. They’ve shamans, they search for prophecy… And it occurs in the true energy recreation in politics in Indonesia,” Sasongko stated.
Because the director behind “Stealing Raden Saleh,” Indonesia’s highest-grossing motion movie with over 2.3 million admissions, Sasongko brings substantial style expertise to the venture. “Queen of Malacca” will probably be his fifth motion function, following “212 Warrior,” “Ben & Jody,” “Stealing Raden Saleh” and “13 Bombs.”
The movie is presently in superior growth with script work and manufacturing technique in progress. Visinema is in talks with potential companions from South Korea and the U.S. to construct cross-border alliances for manufacturing and international distribution. Principal pictures is scheduled to start in 2026.
By means of Visinema, Sasongko has cultivated one in every of Indonesia’s most progressive artistic IP studios. The corporate has expanded past conventional filmmaking into animation, music, digital sequence, and different immersive storytelling codecs.
Visinema’s slate features a collaboration with South Korean powerhouse CJ Leisure on “Name Me Dad,” a remake of the Korean hit “Pawn,” and sci-fi animation “Kancil.”
The success of “Jumbo” has emboldened Sasongko and Visinema to take extra artistic dangers. “‘Jumbo’ is a thesis that proves price to struggle for,” Sasongko stated. “We are able to see it not solely as an animation, but additionally as a progressive motion by us to supply new prospects of storytelling, new prospects of style, new prospects of medium.”
He harassed the significance of content material variety within the Indonesian market: “The success of ‘Jumbo’ provides us a whole lot of confidence to carry extra freshness and convey extra progressive content material to the viewers, particularly the Indonesian viewers, that’s rising very quickly at this second.” Sasongko expressed concern in regards to the present dominance of horror movies within the home market, including, “If we solely depend on one or two genres, we don’t give advantages to the viewers. We don’t give prospects to viewers to develop inside our personal work.”
