Photocopier
フォトコピー
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A student pieces together what happened to her at a party from photocopies; swept Indonesia's Citra Awards, then dropped a co-writer from its credits over a sexual misconduct allegation.
Suryani, called Sur, is a first-year computer science student who depends on a scholarship and builds the website for Mata Hari, her campus theatre troupe. When the troupe's play Medusa is chosen for a festival in Kyoto, she goes to the celebration at the house of Rama, its playwright and the son of a wealthy family, though her father has warned her not to drink. She wakes at home with no memory of the night. Drunk selfies have been posted to her own account, the scholarship committee withdraws her funding on moral grounds, and her father, shamed because the driver who brought her home at three in the morning woke the whole street, throws her out.
She moves in with Amin, a childhood friend who lives at the campus photocopy stall, and uses its computer to copy photos from other students' phones and rebuild the night. She suspects Tariq, who handed her the shots, but the CCTV at Rama's house shows only a drunk girl being carried to a car, and Rama's father offers to pay her fees. Then she sees that Rama's pictures of the Milky Way are close-ups of skin: her own birthmark, and the tattoo of Farah, a photographer who left the troupe. Amin, she learns, has been selling students' private photos to Rama.
Her complaint to the ethics board leaks, Rama's family threatens to sue, and her father makes her record a public apology. Only her mother believes her, and hides her with a friend, Siti. Farah and Tariq come forward: both were drugged, and both are in Rama's pictures. The link is Burhan, the ride-hailing driver who took each of them home. His phone holds videos he secretly shot of Rama undressing and photographing them while they lay unconscious. Rama arrives with men disguised as fumigation workers, takes the phone and burns it.
With nothing left, Sur and Farah haul Amin's photocopier onto the campus roof, copy their testimonies and what evidence remains, and throw the pages into the courtyard. Tariq and other students join them with their own stories. Anggun, who directed the play, slaps Rama. The film ends there, without saying whether any court will hear them.
Starring
Shenina Cinnamonas Suryani (Sur)
A first-year computer science student on a scholarship who loses it, and her home, over a night she cannot remember.
Suryani (Sur)’s story
Sur has built the website for her campus theatre troupe and shares proudly in its success. She goes to the celebration at Rama's house against her father's warning, wakes with no memory of the night, and loses first her scholarship, then her home. Refusing the story everyone tells her, she copies photos from her classmates' phones at Amin's photocopy stall, suspects the wrong man, and finds her own birthmark in Rama's pictures of the Milky Way. Her complaint leaks and her father makes her apologise on camera; only her mother believes her. With Farah and Tariq she finds the driver's secret videos, and loses them when Rama burns the phone. At the end she is on the campus roof beside Farah, throwing copies of their testimony into the courtyard as other students climb up to join them.
Chicco Kurniawanas Amin
Sur's childhood friend, who lives at the campus photocopy stall and has secretly been selling students' private photos to Rama.
Luteshaas Farah
A photographer who left the troupe, and whose tattoo turns up in Rama's pictures of the night sky.
Farah’s story
Farah was the troupe's photographer until she left it, and she warns Sur, the newcomer, not to drink. When Sur's first report to the dean reaches the troupe, Tariq accuses Farah of making it; she denies it and keeps away. Her tattoo is one of the stars in Rama's pictures: at another party she was drugged and undressed, heard a camera clicking, and wrote it all down in a journal. After Sur is made to apologise in public, Farah comes to her to say sorry for not standing by her, and with Tariq they trap the driver who took each of them home. When Rama burns the evidence, she helps Sur haul the photocopier onto the campus roof, and they throw their testimony into the courtyard until others join them.
Jerome Kurniaas Tariq
The troupe member who handed Sur her drinks and became her first suspect, and who had been drugged and photographed himself.
Giulio Parengkuanas Rama
The troupe's playwright, from a wealthy family, who drugs students and turns photographs of their bodies into art.
Dea Panendraas Anggun
The director of the troupe's play, who dismisses Sur's first accusation and in the end strikes Rama.
Why it matters
Photocopier is about what happens to a young woman's account of her own body when the man she accuses has money, a lawyer and a reputation as an artist. Sur is punished first: by a scholarship committee that reads a drunk selfie as a moral failing, by a father ashamed before his neighbours, by an ethics board that leaks her complaint. The film is exact about how institutions turn the person reporting into the person on trial. Drugging, secret filming and the use of other people's bodies as material are the crimes; the deeper subject is who gets believed. It won twelve Citra Awards, the most ever for a single film, and three days before its Netflix release its producers removed a co-writer from the credits over an allegation of sexual misconduct. Its ending offers no verdict, only many people saying the same thing at once.