Bachtiar Siagian's Lost Films and Cold War Erasure

A new documentary and a speculative short film are recovering the legacy of Indonesian director Bachtiar Siagian, whose work was nearly destroyed after the 1965 anti-communist purges. Siagian, a prolific filmmaker who wrote and directed 13 features and numerous documentaries between 1955 and 1965, was imprisoned for 12 years following the US-backed military overthrow of President Sukarno. His films were largely lost or destroyed. Now, Hafiz Rancajale's documentary 'Bachtiar' (2025) follows the director's daughter Bunga Siagian and her brother as they trace his life through scripts, diaries, and interviews. Meanwhile, 'Karmapala Through the Forbidden Scenes' (2023), a short film co-created by Bunga Siagian and artist-curator George Clark, repurposes footage from a 2000s TV miniseries to imagine Siagian's unrealized film 'Karmapala'. The short was originally conceived for the 'Film Undone' gathering in Berlin in 2023. A lost Siagian film, 'Turang' (1958), was recently found at the Russian Film Archive Gosfilmfond and is now touring festivals. The efforts highlight the erasure of leftist cultural figures under Suharto's New Order and the creative methods used to reconstruct lost histories.