General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

A Copy of My Mind

A Copy of My Mind is a 2015 Indonesian drama-thriller directed and written by Joko Anwar, set in Jakarta during the turbulent 2014 presidential election campaign. It follows Sari, a beauty salon worker, and Alek, a subtitle writer for pirated DVDs, whose romance is derailed when Sari steals a DVD containing a recording of political corruption. The film is a co-production between Indonesia and South Korea, made by Anwar's company Lo-Fi Flicks with CJ Entertainment, and it premiered at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in the Horizons (Orizzonti) category.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Joko Anwar, his fifth feature²^•³
Leads	Tara Basro as Sari and Chicco Jerikho as Alek⁴
Production	Lo-Fi Flicks and CJ Entertainment; Indonesia, South Korea, 2015²
Festival premiere	72nd Venice International Film Festival, Horizons category¹
Indonesian release	11 February 2016⁵
Festival Film Indonesia 2015	Seven nominations; won Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Sound Design⁶
Budget and schedule	Ultra-low budget, shot over 10 days with private finance and a $10,000 CJ Entertainment prize from Busan's Asian Project Market 2014⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Sari works in a cheap beauty salon in Jakarta and watches pirated DVDs in her cramped room to escape the fatigue of work. Annoyed by the poor quality of the subtitling on one disc, she complains to the seller, who introduces her to Alek, the man who writes subtitles for pirated DVDs. The two fall in love and build a private world apart from the noise of a heated presidential campaign.²^•⁸

The turn comes when Sari's boss sends her to a prison to give a facial treatment to a wealthy inmate jailed for corruption. Instead of a squalid cell she finds a comfortable room with air conditioning, a home theater, and a DVD collection. She steals a disc, not knowing it holds a recording involving the inmate's woman and several close aides of one of the presidential candidates. By the time Sari and Alek understand what they have, danger is closing in.⁸

Production

Anwar conceived the film in January 2014, in the run-up to Indonesia's presidential election, which was held in July 2014 when Joko Widodo defeated former general Prabowo Subianto. He described the polarizing campaigns of the period as damaging Indonesians' ability to think logically, and said he wanted the film to work as a "time capsule" of contemporary Indonesia rather than as a political statement.⁷

Low-budget realism. Filming took just 10 days on a very small budget: Lo-Fi Flicks, the company Anwar set up alongside producers Tia Hasibuan and Uwie Balfas, funded the movie privately and with $10,000 in prize money CJ Entertainment had given it at the 2014 Asian Project Market in Busan. CJ Entertainment, which was moving into Bahasa-language production, handled international sales, and the film was the Korean studio's first in Indonesia.⁷ To keep the feel authentic, Anwar had actors such as Tara Basro observe real workplaces and filmed them in character before shooting quickly, mixing scripted scenes with improvised dialogue. One location, a pirate DVD store and factory rumored to move close to $500,000 a day next door to a police station, was filmed in secret; Anwar said the crew was caught once but he was released after talking with a man from his home village.⁷

The visual approach supports that realism: the film uses dynamic composition, jump cuts, handheld camera, and available light.⁹ Critics noted the low-key mise-en-scene, with dank lighting in small dwellings and ambient close-ups of urban alleys bringing Jakarta to life without big set pieces or showy locations.³

Festivals and reception

The film premiered at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in the Horizons category in 2015, then screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the Toronto International Film Festival and in Busan's A Window on Asian Cinema.¹^•¹⁰ It later played at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2016 and the Sydney Film Festival in 2016, and won the Geber Award at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival 2015.¹¹

At the Festival Film Indonesia 2015 it received seven nominations and won three Citra awards: Best Director for Joko Anwar, Best Actress for Tara Basro, and Best Sound Design for Khikmawan Santosa. It was also nominated for Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Supporting Actor (Paul Agusta), and Best Music Design.⁶

Critical response was largely favorable to the romance and divided on the thriller turn. Reviewers praised the chemistry between Tara Basro and Chicco Jerikho and the film's observational texture; one critic compared it to Three Days of the Condor amid the Busan lineup, calling it "a beautifully acted love story with some paranoia politics on the side," while others found the later, plottier section pro forma after the freer first half.¹² On IMDb the film holds a 7.2/10 rating from about 1,100 users.⁴

Release and legacy

The film reached Indonesian theaters on 11 February 2016.⁵ Its reported running time varies by source: 116 minutes on CJ ENM's own page and on MUBI, 117 minutes on some databases, 118 minutes in the Indonesian Film Center archive, and 121 minutes in the Rotterdam and Osaka festival catalogs.¹^•¹³^•⁶^•¹⁴

The film is regarded as part of a strong 2015 season for Indonesian cinema on the international festival circuit, appearing at Venice, Busan, and Toronto in a year when more than a dozen local films competed abroad largely without government support.¹⁵ A novel adaptation of the film has also been published in Indonesia.¹⁶

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026