The Sea Speaks His Name

The tragic yet inspiring story of a group of friends, all young and idealistic political activists who faced the iron fist of power in the waning days of the Suharto regime, in the late 1990s.

In the twilight hours of a day in March, Biru Laut was ambushed by four unknown men. Together with his friends, Daniel, Sunu and Alex, he was taken to an unknown location. For months they were held captive, interrogated, beaten and tortured into answering one sole question: Who stood behind the rebellious student movements at that time?

Biru Laut’s younger sister, who, along with other family members of kidnapped student activists, struggled to put the pieces of the puzzle together and to find answers to their never-ending questions. While her parents appear to be in denial and remain hopeful that Biru Laut will one day come back to sit at the family table again, Asmara Jati engages alongside the Missing Persons Commission Team led by Aswin Pradana in order to strive to find traces of those who went missing and to record the testimonies of those who returned.

This stirring story of Biru Laut and his friends is the story of the desaparecidos of Indonesia. It is the story of a momentous—and still seldom written about—period of Indonesian history that led to the end of dictatorship in Indonesia.